


Rare And Precious Chain

by asparagusmama



Series: Seasons AU - extras! [13]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Lewis' pov, M/M, becoming Lewis, becoming a grandfather, bits and pieces, getting rid of his legend, getting rid of the beard, parental stress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-02
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2017-11-15 12:16:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 17
Words: 27,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/527218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Lewis for his part, had to force himself not to treat James any differently at work, not because they might, what, be dating for the want of another word, but because of what had happened to him...'</p><p>These are bits of pieces spanning my original AU seasons of case fics and James' coming to terms with both childhood trauma and more recent assault but are all from Lewis' PoV as he struggles to be a supportive and understanding boss and friend and a patient and loving boyfriend and hopefully, eventually, lover.</p><p>Despite the tags there is no descriptions of either crimes or, in this, James' own feelings and memories. instead it deals with how we best support someone we love who has been a victim of sex crimes.</p><p>You probably need to have read the AU series of case fics beginning with Cold Summer for this to make sense.</p><p>(Formally titled No means no...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The slap

**Author's Note:**

> These stories began as stories made up verbally for my daughter, who has high functioning autism, doesn’t sleep and is obsessed with Lewis. It takes 2-3 Lewis DVDs a night to keep her still and get her to sleep, so on holiday these stories were made up and told by me at night, totally exhausted, changing each time. In June 2010, unsupported and not coping very well, I stormed out of the house in my wheelchair to the ring road, ready to wheel myself under a truck. Instead, I came home and began this first of the four. I’ve not written fanfic since the 1990s,where I’ve had Star Trek TOS and DS9 and Dr. Who on the net and in zines, under various names. Please be kind to me. Writing these stories down is my only time to myself, as she doesn’t sleep and I’ve been forced to home educate. Around the original case fics I have written pieces like this that link and make sense, both for me emotionally and for my daughter, who likes entire, complete pictures.
> 
> Lewis and Hathaway belong to ITV. 
> 
> The Counsellor and Lady Julian College are copyrighted and used here by kind permission.
> 
> Oxford is owned by the University Colleges, The Crown, The Church of England, Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council, as is Henley and Thame, the later council who should be lined up against a wall, or even better, all magically transported into a pain ridden disabled body left caring for an autistic child and see how they cope with their savage cuts to care, support, school and charity funding....

Things had, on the surface, gone back to normal, although James gave him sideways looks from time to time, since the arrest of Sebastian Charles’ killers and the Roschenkov brothers. They still went for a pint together, they still for the most part, worked well as a team, currently reviewing cold cases. Hooper and Ngoti seemed to be fully aware of a change in the relationship in their DI and DS but – and amazingly for Hooper – were keeping their observations to themselves.

Lewis for his part, had to force himself not to treat James any differently at work, not because they might, what, be dating for the want of another word, but because of what had happened to him.

The bruises took two weeks to fade properly, as for the internal injuries, Lewis didn’t ask and James didn’t elaborate, but the way he held himself and walked sometimes was enough to tell Lewis that James was still suffering. As for those other internal injuries – the emotional, who knew? James was as closed in as ever, his poker faced fixed at work, and his gaze on the horizon in the Trout garden and on passing tourists in the White Horse and the Turf.

That second Friday Lewis nervously suggested he take James for a meal, rather than just a drink and takeaway. They left Oxford to avoid gossip, Lewis driving them down to Henley and taking them to the Villa Marina – he’d booked them a romantic table on the terrace overlooking the river when he’d sent James for coffee and sandwiches at work – and made it quite plain that this was a date, insisting on paying, choosing the wine, flattering James, trying and failing to get the lad to open up and talk to him. James was wasting away before his eyes and he tried and tried to get the boy to eat the fine food, but he ended up finishing both meals. James seemed happy with the ice cream and a cigarette for afters, though.

They went for a walk along the river afterwards, Robbie reaching out and taking James’ hand and entwining their fingers. He was so happy James didn’t object. They sat on a bench and watched the boats.

“I’m sorry,” James said suddenly, into the silence that had descended.

“What for?”

“Being so messed up. For wanting you for so long and now, for leading on you on, I suppose.”

“Whatever you want James love.”

“Suppose I don’t want this to be a secret?” he snapped.

“Well, I’m not in favour myself, but come on, this needs to be a secret. At least for the moment. I mean, what do we have, eh? We just held hands, but I’ve not even kissed you since I took you up to Shotover Hill.”

“I’m sorry!” James spat out, sounding more like a challenge than an apology.

“I love you. I’ll wait for however long it takes you.”

James seemed to consider a moment and then reached out to the back of Robbie’s neck and pulled him into a kiss, leaning back on the bench, bringing his other hand to Robbie’s hair, kissing with a passionate intensity he’d not experienced since the early days of him and Val, before the kids were born and everything had become hurried and snatched opportunities...

Robbie found himself kissing back equally intensely, bringing a hand to hold the back of James’ head to control the kiss a little, while his other hand began to caress James, first his back and then down to the small of his back, and round, slipping his hand across his belly, fingers sliding into the shirt, pulling at buttons so he could feel skin. He surprised himself, he wasn’t given to such public displays of affection, he could only defend his actions to himself later was with the facts that they were in an isolated river path out of the town, hidden almost completely by a willow tree and a bend in the river, and that secondly ever since he’d admitted to himself how he felt about James, and before, in troubled dreams and fantasies, he’d been desperate to touch him.

Lost in the kiss, the contact, the warm feel of James’ skin, Robbie acted without really thinking, once he’d undone a couple of buttons, sliding his fingers across and up, to caress James’ left nipple. It happened so quickly, his finger brushed gentle against the hard nipple – and it was definitely was a hard, as was another part! – then he heard the resounding slap almost before he felt it; his ears ringing with the noise as his left cheek and ear began to burn with the sudden pain, felt more so because this was James and he’d...

He’d what? What did he do wrong? James had started this, hadn’t he? He opened his eyes in shock and saw James staring, eyes glittering, chest heaving with emotion.

For a second or two neither man spoke, they stared at each other, Robbie hurt, James’ eyes still burning with emotion Robbie couldn’t quite identify. Anger? Fear? Desperation? He reminded him for a moment of a trapped animal.

Then James leapt to his feet and just ran.

Robbie let out the breath he hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding and pelted down the river path after James. It was late, even for early June, the sun was almost vanished beneath the horizon and it was growing chilly as it was growing darker. As they left the scrub and re-entered the park footpath Robbie caught James as he climbed the stile into the park proper. He grabbed his arm.

“James. Stop.”

“Let go of me,” James hissed.

“James love.”

“I could have hurt you.”

Robbie couldn’t stop a chuckle escaping. “I seriously doubt that pet. Not badly, anyhow. James love, stop...”

“I’m sorry!” James spat out before pulling his arm away and leaping off the fence and running off into the dark, across and not along the side of the river the way they came, the way back to the restaurant and Robbie’s car.

Robbie gave chase again, he’d used to run every day and recently had started again, and although James was a lot younger he was a smoker it didn’t take much to catch him up again, watching as he ran from the park down a small alley and out on to the High Street.

“James!” he yelled, almost catching him as James ran towards a bus stop, a yellow and blue bus was indicating to pull away from the stop. James banged on the door and leapt on as the doors opened with a hiss. The bus pulled away immediately he was on, the driver waving James to sit down. Robbie just knew the cheeky bugger had flashed his warrant card at the driver. He probably hadn’t a clue where the bus was going.

Robbie doubled up, breathing hard. What had got into him?

“You want the bus too? Your mate should have waited for you, made the bus wait,” a teenaged girl said sympathetically. She had just waved off her boyfriend.

“I didn’t want the bus,” Robbie panted out, breathing hard. “I wanted to stop him. Stupid sod. Where’s that bus going to then?”

“Reading.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“You gonna chase him then?”

“No,” Robbie shook his head. “He can get a train from there to Oxford. He needs some space, that’s all. I hope.”

“Is he your boyfriend then?”

Robbie looked at the young girl, fourteen, fifteen, curious, sympathetic, not shocked nor disgusted or even morbidly fascinated. “Yeah,” he replied. “I hope so, anyhow.”

Later, much later, Robbie received a text.

“Sorry. Panicked. Got train home. Safe.”


	2. Valerie

“Hope you don’t mind me talking about this pet. I know how you wouldn’t want me to be alone. We talked about it. I just didn’t like to remember that, for years. Love you so much. I still miss you but...

“Funny, eh? We talked about it coz it might of been me going early. That time in Wytham Woods. Shouldn’t have told you love, I know. Wasn’t for me that I was afraid, just you and the kids. Who would be there for you all?

“Feels like that with James. He’s so young love, our Lyn’s age, thereabouts. Whose gonna look out for him when I’ve gone, eh?

“Thing is, no one ever looked out for him. His Dad’s boss – Lord of the fucking manor, exercising his droit du seigneur on the Estate’s kids left, right and centre. Bloody pervert.

“James was one of them, love. He doesn’t talk about it but I read his statement. He was so brave, he didn’t need to do that, we had Briony, and we had Paul – poor sod, so messed up by what that man did to him he ended up murdering more than once to protect his abuser.

“James isn’t like that, oh no, too bloody clever. He went to public school. Always thought he came from an Estate like that, but not as a servant’s kid, and an Estate Manager is just that, a glorified servant, really. Management, but as far as the likes of the Mortmaigne goes, scum as much as the girl scrubbing his floors. Think he’s a cut above, his right to use the children like... like... sex toys!

“His statement, Val! Six years of it, more if you count a years grooming before hand. Don’t think his parents and him got on, and Mortmaigne was clever, filled the gap. And then there’s his religion. Got a thing about being gay that it would break your heart love, honest.

“He’s in court in a few days. Not as my sergeant, but one of the many victims. But the thing is Val...

“The thing is...”

“Well, look, a couple of weeks ago I....”

“We’ve being doing these non date - date things for years – we go for a pint or two, get a takeaway and then crash on me sofa, watching crap on the TV, and he’ll crash out half the time and cook me breakfast and sometimes we’ll end up spending the whole weekend together. Sometimes I get to go to his gigs. It’s weird music – sort of mixed up fusion you loved, gave you hope for a multicultural world and that.

“Look, I took Laura out, okay. You remember Dr. Laura Hobson? Wasn’t a date, was it? I wanted her advice. You know I fancied men at times, but there was you and I never needed... I was panicking love; I needed to talk. I love him, pet. I’m sorry, but I do. I love him like you. I never thought I would...”

“Shit. Get to the point Robbie.

“See, James was jealous. God knows what he was doing in a gay nightclub, it’s just not his scene. Looking for a friend to talk to he said. Anyhow, love, there was this Russian, and he took James for a cup of tea and a chat, all sympathetic like. And he goes and drugs James tea and the next thing...”

“The next thing James knows is he’s waking up somewhere else, naked and he’s...

“He’s got the taste of semen and blood in his mouth, and he’s bleeding from... down there. By the time he gets to me Val... he’s...

“Oh God! Half his face was bruises. His wrists, they tied him up with rope and he must have struggled so hard, it’s red raw and inflamed and...

“I seriously don’t know what to do. I love him. I want him bad. For years and years he’s had this crush on me, but I’m scared, you know?

“Remember when our Lyn was into that boy band? Looked like poofs, the lot of them. NSMs, you said, girls like Nice Safe Men to have a crush on, it’s a safe way to fall in love for your first crush... Well, you worked at a school full of hormonal teenagers, so you should know.

“What if I was that? His NSM? Then I go let him know I fancy him, that I want him...

“I’m not safe am I? Not anymore?

“I know love, I know. You’d say he’s over thirty not under fifteen. But, the way I look at it, part of him is still that little boy stuck in the Summerhouse just as much as part of him is still that precocious gifted child who got a scholarship to a top public school. Sex is an academic thing to him, something to analyse, something to look at in art, poetry, and stuff like that.

“Suppose I just have to carry on being as patient as I can, don’t I? But it’s hard love, bloody hard. A bit of kissing on the sofa like we’re teenagers isn't enough for me, I want... I want him Val. Forgive me, still feels like cheating on you, but you’re not here love, and he is, and I want to... I want everything, anything that makes him safe. It’s not the sex, is it? Although, that’s fun, isn’t it?

“We did have fun when the kids weren’t around, didn’t we?

“But it’s just the closeness, the warmth, the holding each other. It’s making the other person feel happy, safe, loved. It’s feeling loved, isn’t it?

“What am I going to do Val?

“Yeah, just love and love and love and wait and wait and wait. Yeah I know.

“Thanks for listening love. I hope you like the flowers. Couldn’t get any of your favourites today. Just boring carnations – mostly red and white, look good, eh? The mix. But I got a couple of green ones, seemed right, seeing as I was telling you about James. You know? I mean I’ve told you about James, but not... how I feel. Hope you can forgive me love, let me be happy. If he’ll let me be happy. See you love. Thanks for listening.”


	3. 'On Top'

It was three weeks after the court, after James had self-harmed for the first time since his early twenties. Robbie watched him subtly as possible, trying and failing to hide the fact he was checking James’ wrists. Thankfully, however, due to something his friend the Counsellor had said – or done, Robbie Lewis did not rule out done with the Counsellor – James was beginning to eat more normally. Of this he was extremely grateful. James took to spending time in his flat cooking after work midweek, sometimes initiating a bit of kissing on the sofa, sometimes curling up in his corner with coffee or beer after he’d washed up staring at the TV. Between ten and eleven he would invariably get up and, after saying he’d see him in the morning, would leave without another word.

Robbie struggled and struggled to make head or tail of what was going on in the lad’s head. Sometimes he would be so determined and passionate about kissing, always pulling Robbie down on to him but then seemed to panic and push and pull to get away, curling up on the sofa and complaining he wasn’t ready, acting as if Robbie had initiated the kiss, pushed him into it.

Robbie decided the next time James kissed him he’d pull him on top of him instead of vice versa, as it was something that hadn’t even seemed to cross James’ mind. Grooming, he wondered?

It was a Saturday night and it was James’ flat. Robbie had taken him out for a meal again, this time over in Thame, this time a Thai restaurant in a converted pub The Rising Sun. James invited him in for coffee and they sat on James’ long sofa that Robbie knew was more often slept in than his bed and waited to see what James would do. It was driving him mad, he was desperate to touch him, to show him how he felt, to somehow show him that touching was a good feeling, a safe, loving feeling, but he felt helpless in the face of James’ confusion.

Suddenly, without a word James reached across the small gap between them and kissed him gently.

“I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Robbie asked gently, putting his hand into James’ hair and stroking it carefully, as one would a child.

“I’m no good for you. I want you. I want us to do more, but every time we...”

“It’s okay. I do understand. Or try to.”

“Thank you.” James slowly pressed his lips to his again, uncertain, as if he wanted Robbie to take control of the situation.

He did so slowly, and after a while he got himself laid back with James on top of him, long legs lying in between his. James leapt of him and the sofa as if he’d been stung.

“No!”

“What love?” He was tired, he didn’t mean to sound exasperated. He grew angry with himself for not controlling his temper, which in turn made him more impatient. “What did I do wrong now!?”

“It feels wrong. I don’t like it like that. I like you on top of me.”

“You could have fooled me James! The way you carry on every time I...”

“I said sorry. I am sorry. You said you’d give me time!”

“I am! What do you think I’m doing? I was just trying to find a way to make you comfortable.”

“By that? It’s wrong! You shouldn’t... I don’t want... You were straight! You shouldn’t...”

“What the hell are you talking about man!” Robbie stood up, his anger rising completely now. “Straight? What’s that got to with anything? I love you James, okay? And if you want me in a box, then get the right one, okay. I’m bisexual, I love Val and now I love you. Alright? Alright?”

“But you... but you... but you wanted to fuck me! You said so!”

“God James, if I could take back what I said to you in Port Meadow I would bloody do it. I was trying to show you that men were quite capable of feeling that about you without ever trying anything, without ever threatening you – without hurting you. I don’t want to hurt you James, I want to do whatever makes you feel safe, whatever feels good to you. If you want me to... have you, then fantastic. Bloody fantastic, in fact. If not, there are plenty of things to do. You could have me. Never tried, but I’ll give it a go if it makes you happy. I just want to be close to you pet. Close to you, hold you, and...”

“Oh God!” James was crying now, not angry or scared. “I don’t want you to do that... I mean; I don’t want to do that... I just want to... I want you to... Please...”

“C’m here love,” Robbie’s anger evaporated and he held out his arms. James moved towards him and they sank to the sofa in a tangle of arms and legs, James’ half sitting on his lap.

“I just want to feel close to you to. I feel so broken.” James took a big sniff. “Before... that happened, before I was...” James took a deep breath and said firmly, “Before I was raped I wanted you so badly. And I mean I wanted you so badly to screw me. I used to fantasize about it all the time. Well, not literally all the time. Just very nearly all the time!” He snorted with pathetic humour. “I hated myself because it was a sin. I was frightened I knew no different because of my childhood. But I wanted you to... I wanted it badly. But then, now, I...”

“It’s only a few weeks ago, really. Don’t be so hard on yourself. I just pray you don’t still hate yourself and think it’s sinful. I love you, I’m not going to hurt you or use you. I love you. That is not a sin, James love, okay. Okay?”

James nodded into his neck. Robbie did not feel convinced but he changed the subject to seeing if there was anything funny on ‘Dave’ and James got up to switch on the TV.


	4. The punch

Robbie put on the TV and began randomly surfing the channels looking for something good. As normal he sat spread out in the middle of his sofa. He’d started to wonder about that a bit since he and James had got – well, not quite got – together. Had he always been subconsciously telling James to come sit on his lap? He hardly left much room for the lad, anyhow. Self-consciously he moved up slightly to the right as James returned from disposing of the takeaway and beers and doing the washing up.

“Do you want...?” James paused, puzzled, frowning slightly at Robbie’s change of position. But James being James, he didn’t comment, just collected his thoughts and continued, a hurt, puzzled little frown barely marring his smooth features. “Do you want another beer? I’m having coffee, else I’ll never be able to drive home.”

Robbie bit back the ‘stay here love, you have before’. He was doing all this at James’ speed, he reminded himself. “I’ll have a coffee too love, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“No trouble at all.” James went back to the kitchen and Robbie shifted back to his usual position on the sofa. He left the TV stuck on BBC4 for James. That pretty Oxford lass Bettany Hughes was talking about Greek Goddesses. He liked her although a lot of what she said didn’t stick in his brain. She was a sort of Nigella of history.

“Thank you,” James said after he had put their coffees on the table, folding his long legs up to curl up in the small gap on the sofa left for him. His knees brushed against Robbie’s and then he settled himself partly on Robbie’s thigh. Robbie put an arm across the back of the sofa, inviting but not pushy. James snuggled into him, putting his head on his shoulder, so Robbie felt okay about putting his arm about James. He gently rubbed James’ shoulder.

“Alright for you pet?”

“Thank you. I missed this first time round on BBC2. I’ve wanted to see it for ages, just never had the time.”

Maybe he’s deliberately misunderstood him, maybe not. Robbie stared at pretty pictures of Greek and Turkish scenery with lots of ruins while watching the lovely young academic who reminds him a bit of his Val. James was fascinated and would have talked for hours if Robbie had let him after a Swedish detective show (with subtitles) replaced the history programme. Robbie would have liked to have watched it. He was getting quite addicted to these Scandinavian police dramas – he didn’t know, of course, how realistic they were, most British ones weren’t, after all, but he liked to see all the similarities and differences in procedure and law. But James wanted to talk of the role of women in ancient religion and how monotheism wasn’t the misogynist, repressive force implied in the documentary. Without thinking Robbie did what he would have done to Val when she had the bit between her teeth on some topic – normally local politics or education – and all he wanted to do was chill out after a stressful day at work: He kissed him.

Damn! Dammit to hell and bloody hell! He was supposed to not be taking anything for granted, leaving it all to James to make any move!

James froze, still in his arms. Robbie had only planted the lightest of kisses and was about to pull back as he felt James’ back stiffen with tension under his hand. But then James let out a little sigh and parted his lips slightly and although he didn’t do much else he relaxed in Robbie’s arms, letting him do all the work for a while before suddenly he took hold of Robbie’s face and tipped back, pulling Robbie down onto him, kissing back passionately, shifting them until he lay on the sofa with Robbie on top, legs holding on tightly wrapped around the back on Robbie’s thighs, arms across his back, hands making little circles on his back.

Instinct took over conscious thought as Robbie took control, getting further than James had ever let him before, removing James’ tie, pushing under his shirt, undoing buttons.

“You can touch me too,” he whispered into James’ ear when he’d got no protest about anything so far.

James looked confused. He looked sexy, dammit, too, his hair ruffled up, shirt half off, lips red and a little swollen, face red from the scratch of stubble. His pupils were blown, but now he was coming into focus with a little panic. “Uh? You want me...? How...?”

Shit! “Whatever you want James, whatever you feel comfortable with.”

“You want me to... tell me what to do!”

“Nothing. It’s okay. What you want James, okay? You tell me what you want.” Robbie was terrified that he’d killed the mood again.

James pushed a hand back into Robbie’s hair and holding the back of his head firmly he pulled him down to him. “Kiss me again.”

And it was alright, as long as Robbie didn’t push for too much in the way of responses and was content with a very passive James, and as long as he didn’t let his hand roam too far, they were back to James being quite content and happy under him. But the more James kissed back and the more he didn’t stop Robbie’s hand, the more instinct took away his control again and soon Robbie’s fingers were sliding under James’ waist band, the other beginning to unbuckle his belt...

“No!” James sounded a little panicked.

“Okay.” He moved his hand to James hip and took the other from James’ belt to his shoulder. “Alright love?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Can I...?” James nodded so Robbie kissed him again, moving his mouth down to James’ neck, and then sucking at the collarbone. It was the first time he’d tried something like this and was pleased as James just sighed with pleasure and arched his back. Not thinking, merely feeling, responding to James’ sighs and bucked hips, Robbie’s hand slid down James’ torso again, this time not trying to get in his trousers, just slowly stroking one finger over the hardening length of James’ cock under the soft wool of his suit trousers.

A flash. Stars. Pain. James was shrieking. There was no other work for it. Struggling underneath him, pushing at him, pulling his arm back for another swing. Still a bit dizzy and stunned Robbie caught James’ wrist as he swung to punch him again. Still keeping hold of James wrist Robbie climbed off James and the sofa. He let go of James to touch the side of his head. It was very tender. James backed away, falling off the sofa himself and curling up, putting his arms over his head.

“Please,” James was saying. “Please. No. Don’t hurt me. Please. I don’t. Please. No! No don’t! Please...”

“James...?” Robbie squatted down beside him and reached out to touch his shoulder. James flinched back and yelled like a terrified animal. Robbie withdrew his hand. “It’s me. Robbie. James, it me pet. It’s Robbie Lewis. You’re safe. You’re in my flat. James love, you’re safe. It’s me. It’s Robbie. Come on now love. Calm down. Please love, eh? You’re with me, in my flat. It’s Lewis. Please James.”

James was still babbling his refusals and pleas.

It was horrible. Was James flashing back to that Russian truck? Did he plead and beg and scream like that then? Oh God, poor James! What kind of monsters did that to a person, who could push on hurting someone listening to their cries for it to stop? Thank God those bastards were going down for a long, long time. Robbie took a deep breath and kept his voice as calm and firm as he could,

“Sergeant Hathaway! Pull yourself together man. It’s me, DI Lewis, your boss. Stop it. Now!”

James went silent immediately. Slowly his arms slid down from over his head and he looked up, eyes wide with shock. He looked up at Robbie, horrified. He leapt to his feet and started backing away, staring all the while with horror and embarrassment.

“Sorry,” he was saying. “Sorry sorry sorry.” He grabbed his tie and shoved it in his pocket and then fumbled at his shirt buttons.

“James?”

“I’ve got to go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Oh God, I’m sorry! Oh fuck! What did I do? I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. Oh shit. I never...”

“James, it’s fine. Come and sit down, I’ll make you another coffee and we’ll watch TV, eh? Come on love. It’s fine.”

“I’m sorry!” James spat out again, having already picked up keys and phone, he grabbed his shoes and jacket and bolted out of the door.

Robbie went to go after him but another stab of pain at the side of his head. He went into the bathroom. Shit and bugger! What had James done to him? How the hell was he going to explain that? Better get some ice on that or it might spread to a black eye. Shit!

Sitting on the sofa with a bag of peas wrapped in a tea towel to the side of his face Robbie first left voicemails on both James’ phones telling him it was okay, he understood and that everything was fine. Then he scrolled through his contacts until he found whom he wanted: PC Julie Bennett.

“Hi. Julie. Aren’t you and Tracy on nights?

“Yeah. Thought I’d seen that in the rosters. Swing by DS Hathaway’s place if your not busy would you.

“No, don’t talk to him. Just check he’s got home safely and let me know, eh?

“Yes. Yes he was. My fault. Just let me know, eh? I can trust you, can’t I lass? Just between you and me.

“Yeah. And Tracy. I owe you both a pint for this girls. Thanks.”

Fifteen minutes later Julie called back to let Robbie know James was safely at home, he hadn’t drawn the blinds and they could see him curled up on his sofa with a bottle of Scotch. Robbie spent the rest of the evening until called to a body trying to get James to answer the phone or a text, apart from when Lyn called. But telling Lyn all that James was going through and how he was trying to help was long overdue.


	5. Laura

“So?” Laura asked, swirling the remaining bitter around her half-pint glass. They were in The White Horse in Headington, Robbie had phoned her and asked to meet. They were both still a little shaken by the fingerprints on the rock, but it wasn’t the case Robbie wanted to discuss and she knew it.

“So?” Robbie threw back at her.

“You and James?”

“What about me and James?”

“Well, I’m not asking after the lanky boy as your sergeant, am I? I know he’s damn good. You should push him for promotion. Solve all sorts of knots you might tie yourself up into...”

“What knots?”

“Well, regulations, etc etc.”

Robbie shrugged. “Nothing is happening.”

“Really? I thought...”

“A bit of kissing, and then he shuts down.”

“Shuts down?”

“Panics. Pushing me away. Runs off. That sort of thing.”

“Hits you? That sort of thing too? You didn’t bash your face on a cupboard door emptying the dishwasher, did you?”

“No.” Robbie sighed. “He punched me. He panics, like I said. It’s his bloody awful childhood.”

“Actually Robbie, I doubt that. How long is it now, since his drugging and abduction and...”

“Rape? Nearing two months now.”

“Well, it’s very recent, isn’t it? And Rohypnol too. He’s probably still flashing. He’s stuck in the back of that cab with those... those monsters!” Laura Hobson spat out with feeling.

“Aye. I thought as much. I just have to give him time.”

“Are you sure that’s all? Has he seen anyone at all? Laxton’s team have people who can offer support don’t they?”

“This is James. Course not. Won’t even talk to me much. I’m forever having to second guess him, work out what is going on in that thick skull of his, I... oh, listen to me. I don’t want to moan. It just gets so hard.”

“It?” Laura said suggestively and then sniggered like a dirty schoolgirl.

“Laura man!” Robbie spoke sharply and glared, then moved closer and spoke quietly. “Yeah. That is a problem. He starts stuff, I’ll never push him, just wait to see what is on offer, if you get what I mean. And then he – changing his mind I suppose?”

“Or has flashbacks. It’s not you he’s fighting Robbie. You need to know that, okay?” She put her hand on his and squeezed. “He’s not rejecting you. It’s just... actually, he’s fighting the memories with you because you make him safe.”

“Oh Laura, I don’t know. It’s so hard, it really is – innuendo aside, there’s that too. God knows how many times he’s pushed me away I’ve gone locked myself in the bathroom and... God, why am I even telling you this!” he stood up abruptly and picked up their glasses. “Same again?”

“Mineral water for me, I’m on call.”

“Fine.”

“You can say anything to me Robbie,” Laura said as he returned and sat down, taking a long pull at his second pint. “I hope we’re good friends, and good friends don’t judge. You’re human. Is that’s what bothering you? That you have to... um, sort yourself out, as it were?”

Robbie shrugged, “Been doing that since Val’s been gone.”

“You’re not worried you’ll lose control are you?”

“In what way?”

“That you’ll force him into anything, push him...”

“No. Not that. I understand. I told him he has all the time he needs, whatever and however he wants. And I mean it.”

“Good.” Laura said, and then smirked.

“What?”

“If not, there’s always...” she grabbed his right hand.

“Laura! Grow up man! How old are you?”

“Sorry.”

They drank their drinks and sat in silence, not an awkward silence, despite the unwanted teasing, but the companionable silence of best friends, friends who have known each other for years.

“I’m worried, if he catches me unawares, if I’m tired, or having an off day, I’ll smack back. I’ve self-defence training, been in more situations than him where I’ve had to use it, restrain suspects, and that. He’ll smack me one and I’ll just react – I’ll hurt him. I already slapped him once. No – punched him. I meant to slap, he was hysterical, but I just lost it.”

“He’s a big boy, Robbie.”

“That’s not the point, is it? He’s not inside, is he? And all that damaged small boy, it’s not just Mortmaigne, is it? If I go hitting him I’ll be no better than his father.”

“I know, Robbie, I know. But you’re human. Don’t be so hard on yourself. You can’t be everything to him, you can’t make up for all the other men in his life who’ve hurt and used him. You can only be yourself.”

“Aye. But is it enough?”

“It’s you he fell in love with,” Laura said meaningfully staring at him. Just then her phoned buzzed. She checked it. “Got to go. Sorry.”

“Anything?”

“Nope. RTA, nothing suspicious, just wet weather. Are you seeing him tonight?”

“Picking him up after his band practice, getting a curry.”

“Well, just – be yourself Robbie. It’s all you need to do. But remember, people do recover – they don’t get over, they learn to live with it. James will learn to live with the memories – and the not memories, too. He’ll stop the flashbacks in time, I promise. And then... then the fun will really start.”

“Oh aye, coz under the post rape trauma lies the childhood abuse.”

“Which he’s lived with most of his life and he seems pretty well adjusted and balanced to me. He’ll get there Robbie. Promise. See you.”


	6. The Counsellor

“Detective Inspector Lewis.”

“Yes. Hello.”

She was doing that thing, standing on the door step grinning like a lunatic, staring at him with far seeing, mind penetrating hazel eyes. She made his title seem like a name, the way James managed to make Sir sound like his name.

“It’s Robbie.”

“Yes. I know. What do you want?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, nothing to do with my capacity as a senior officer in CID. No alien weirdness.”

“No alien weirdness?”

“None. I just want a little chat, Counsellor.”

“A chat? Charlotte?”

“What? Oh, no, nothing to do with your daughter. Just a bit of advice, that’s all.”

“It’s my name.”

“You’re my friend.”

“Oh. Yes. I forgot.” She turned and walked into the house.

“Forgot... Um, it’s a bit bigger in here...”

“Well, technically, the house is in the Cloisters. She’s not well, won’t move, but I sorted out the chameleon. And thanks to my darling we have money. I’ve send Charlotte to a decent school. But she will keep running away... Forgot, yes Robbie. Not you. People here think I’m a weird hippy, a stuck up snob. Hah! If only they knew, they don’t like humans with darker skins and different accents. If I didn’t know any better I’d think I’d fallen back 50 years...”

“Forgot?” Lewis prompted.

“Forgot how to be friends.”

“You must have had friends at home. It can’t be that different.”

“You’d think? No, no really. Why are you here?”

“James. I wanted someone neutral.”

“I am that. I’ve not sorted out a vehicle yet, and was just about to call a taxi. Take me shopping and we can talk. Although, I’m not a counsellor, as such, it’s my name, really, and although, um yes, I did, sort of, yes, m’m, peep in his mind, h’m? I can’t really, you know...”

They walked about Tescos together, the Counsellor buying a mixture of healthy vegan basics and incredibly sugary treats. Robbie talked about general things, embarrassed to actually talk about it all now he was here, especially since they were in public.

They stopped at a farm shop on the way back – although way back was a stretch of geography, Robbie didn’t mind. The place had a garden with views over the fields, eighteenth century grain stores and farmhouse and the South Downs. They shared a pot of tea while Robbie ate Victoria sponge and the Counsellor had fruitcake.

“She got in touch, you know?” the Counsellor said, suddenly into the silence.

“She did? Good. I hope...?”

“She has a son. Sort of. Adopted. And her pet Xylox diagnosed and identified what is wrong with Charlotte in human terms and where her other DNA comes from.”

“All good then.”

“We’re just friends.”

“Well then. Better than nothing. And you said you have no friends.”

“She’s in London. And busy. And so are you. It’s Wednesday morning. Why aren’t you at work? And where is your lanky sergeant, anyway?”

“In the office, on the computer, going through files. Cold cases. I’m chasing witnesses. I couldn’t find them though.” Lewis grinned.

“That doesn’t sound like you!”

Robbie Lewis snorted. “No. No it’s not me, inventing witnesses to get me a couple of hours away. But I’m at me wits end, and I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know how to help him. I say we should go back to being friends but then he makes a move, then backs of and blames me. He makes me feel like I’m the abuser, that I’m the rapist. I’m not! I’m not like that! I’m not!”

The Counsellor poured some more tea and pushed it into Lewis’ hand. “I know you’re not. And so does he. You make him feel safe.”

Robbie snorted. “Safe!”

The Counsellor stared.

“He slapped me a few weeks ago. And there was this couple on our last case, adopted their niece, but one of ‘em took the other’s surname in the civil partnership. Sent James a bit weird.”

“How so?”

Robbie sighed deeply. “I dunno. Not really. But I can tell when the lad is worrying about something and trying to hide it from me. I’ve had years of him doing that sort of thing. Something hits him, something reminds him of his childhood or hits that self-hate button his damn bloody religion put there and it’ll chew him up inside but for all the world would know he’s the same flippant, arrogant, clever sod.”

“You’re good at soothing over flawed arrogant sods, aren’t you? Though, of course, Morse was never flippant. Sexist, but never flippant.”

“He was a man of his times Counsellor. And you – you’ve been here long enough to play those games.”

“Sorry. No. A hundred years isn’t enough to get used to pretending to be stupid and second class. Anyway, we’ve had waves of change since I arrived. Thank the Lord! Don’t change the subject. Does he want to be James Lewis or is the whole gay marriage is sinful crap? Or both, possibly? And why did he slap you? I’ll order us another pot of tea. More cake?” She stood up and walked back through the garden to the cafe at the back of the farm shop.

Robbie watched some little kids in the sandpit as their mams sat at the table nearby, one rocking a baby. A couple of businessmen and a woman got up and left, walking past him. He could here the wind in the nearby fields stir the crops and a bee buzzed past his ear. He felt quite at peace, he didn’t know the last time he’d just sat enjoying the sunshine and nature without being a bit pissed with James at the Trout, walking with James in Christchurch meadow discussing a case or without thinking of Val and happier times.

“I don’t want him to be James Lewis!” Robbie found himself blurting out as the Counsellor sat back down to him. “A happy James Hathaway would suit me.”

“Sure? Val changed her name.”

“You did back then. And she was a woman.”

“So, if James was Jane...?”

“No! Yes! I’ve not thought about marriage. Civil partnership. Whatever. I just want him to be happy, easy with himself, easy with me. Not guilty. Not screwed up inside about love and touch and stuff.”

“Stuff?”

“You know...?”

“Oh. I know!” The Counsellor grinned widely, a bit manically. 

Robbie looked her and grinned a bit sheepishly.

They looked hurriedly away from each other. The Counsellor busied herself pouring tea and Robbie took a mouthful of cake.

“Why did he slap you?” the Counsellor eventually asked into the silence.

“I let my hand... um, roam a bit. I got carried away. But I’m nearly sixty dammit! Not sixteen! And he might be younger, but he’s no teenage kid, is he?”

“Well, you know, inside, h’m?”

Robbie scowled angrily at her.

“No. No he’s not. But he’s only recently been raped. Plus, as you say, there’s his childhood trauma and religious angst. You have to be patient.”

“I bloody know that!” Robbie roared.

The Counsellor blinked. Slowly and deliberately.

“Sorry. That was unforgivable.”

“No. No, it wasn’t. In fact, it was probably necessary. You can’t keep everything bottled in forever.”

“He didn’t just slap me Counsellor, he punched me. Hard. And then he... well, he kind of flashbacked. It was horrible to watch. I kept trying to hold him, reassure him it was me, he was safe, but the more I tried to the more he...” Robbie put his head in his hands and shook. The Counsellor put her hand to his back and rubbed in small circles.

“I’ve nothing helpful I can say, really. We Gallifreyans are cowards, we just lock our trauma away, you English have nothing on our stiff upper lips. We hide it and if we can’t – well, that’s what someone with a high esper rating and training like me does – we lock it away for them. I offered to lock James’ memories away from himself but I don’t think he was too impressed.”

Robbie looked up. “No, I doubt he was.”

“In fact, he is a bit uneasy around me. Truth told.”

“Aye, he is that.”

“It’s his religion again, isn’t it?”

“Yup. ’spect so.”

“You need a break Robbie. You need to get away for a while. You’re his boss, his friend, you’re wanting more but in a way, you’ve ending up his carer. You need a break. And maybe find someone else to talk to about this. I’m not qualified, and I’m not really... I don’t know, um...”

“Human?”

“Yes. There must be someone.”

“I don’t hold with counsellors and that. No offence.”

“None taken. It’s my name. I believe I said.”

They grinned at each other.

“There is my niece,” Robbie said after a while of them both eating more cake and drinking more tea.

“Niece?”

“My brother’s eldest by his first marriage. She runs this place, a bit hippie, New Age. A retreat. But she’s me niece and I don’t hold with half of the stuff. I mean, come on, can you see me running naked through the woods to meet the sun?”

“And she has her visitors do that does she?” the Counsellor looked at Robbie in all seriousness.

“Dunno really. That sort of thing. Incense and bells and candles...”

“No, that’s James’ religion,” the Counsellor said primly.

Robbie grinned at her for a moment. “Don’t mock.”

The Counsellor threw up her hands. “I don’t. I respect all beliefs, you know that. I made it more than one lifetimes’ study. Maybe you mean angelic healing, crystals and sage smudging, Shamanic bells with healing vibrations, tarot and all else the ‘Age of Aquarius’ brought to us? All valid belief systems, even if their return in modernity is a bit mix and match. Don’t you mock.”

“I... don’t. It’s just not for me, really.”

“She’s family, Robbie. Families are very important to you humans. I would hazard a guess she makes a tidy profit out of all her retreats too.”

“Aye, she makes a living. Not seen her for years. She came to a course a few years ago here in Oxfordshire and stayed over, her and her partner. She’s a bit older than our Lyn, and for all her mumbo jumbo she has her head screwed on the right way.”

“Where is she?”

“Northumbria. A bit back from the coast. An old farmhouse converted.”

“Why don’t you go?”

Robbie shrugged. “Just thought of it.”

“You’d pass through Newcastle to get there?”

“Yeah, I s’pose...”

“Go home. Recharge your batteries. Pop in on your niece. If nothing else the air is clean and the views will be stunning.”

“Our Lyn’s been on at me to go stay with her, too.”

“Newcastle. The Northumbria countryside. Manchester. Sounds perfect.”

“I’ve leave owing.”

“There you go then.” 

“But what about James? I’ll have to take him.”

“Robbie, the purpose of this exercise is to give you a break. I thought we had established that.”

“But James...”

“Can look after himself. He’s been doing so for years, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, but...”

“But nothing Inspector Lewis! You need a break from him.”

“But James...”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It’ll do him good too. Have you left him alone for a day since it happened?”

“While, we sleep apart but... Look! I put work first that time he was in court and he started slashing his wrists. Self-harming. And if I leave him he’ll probably drink too much and...”

“Morse drank too much. You didn’t nursemaid him, did you?”

“I wasn’t in love with Morse!” 

“Yes you were!”

“Not like that! No I wasn’t! It wasn’t like that at all!”

“You were,” the Counsellor repeated quietly.

Robbie glared at the Counsellor, who shrugged and went on,

“No, you weren’t then, but James is an adult too, not your child. You must trust him to make his own mistakes or what kind of relationship will you have? You want him over his childhood, you want him to move on and have a grown up sexual relationship? You fancy him? You’re in love with him?”

“Yeah. All those things. I want us...”

“Then he’s not your child as well Robbie, however young he is. Take a step back from this. Have a break. Please.” She drained her tea and stood up. “And now you must take me home, Charlotte will be there soon.”


	7. The shove

They had been in court, giving evidence for a previous case. They hung around for hours, not talking and James nipping out for a smoke every now and then, for the best part of seven hours, before the judge called it a day and they were told to come back tomorrow.

“That was so boring!” James moaned as they got into Robbie’s car. They were at Crown Court in Reading as this had been a joint case with Berkshire.

“Nah! Sometimes it’s nice to just woolgather. And get paid for it.”

“What?” James looked puzzled.

“Just chill!” Robbie explained.

“If I’d have known we’d be all day I’d have bought a book. Or my Kindle. And my ipod.,” James moaned.

“Hungry?”

“Starved.”

“What bothers me is that we weren’t called. Why? We were part of the arrest team and half these burglaries were in our area.”

“Maybe everything is just taking a lot longer than CPS expected? This gang have been at it for years, and other forces have sent evidence for the court to consider.” James shrugged. “I fancy Indian. What about you?”

“Do you know anywhere in Reading?”

James shrugged again.

“C’mon then,” Robbie said decisively, starting his car.

“Where are we going?”

“There’s a place over Cholsey way. We’ll stop of there and get takeaway. Let’s go back to mine.”

James nodded vaguely and switched on the radio for the local news. He bit his thumbnail and looked out of the window, rocking slightly.

“Okay?” Robbie asked, worried. What went on in that lad’s head? He’d been as jumpy as anything all day.

James nodded vaguely. “I hate waiting around,” he murmured.

“Well, next time have your Kindle in your pocket, then.”

Robbie sighed inwardly. Nothing untoward. Sometimes these days it was beginning to feel like before, before he had let James know how he felt, before ‘it’ had happened. All to the good, then. He experimented with putting his hand on James’ thigh as he drove. James smiled at him and closed his long fingers around Robbie’s hand. Robbie squeezed back, tracing his thumb pad over James’ fingertips, feeling ever guitar caused calluses among the otherwise soft, young skin. How young he felt compared to his old, hard skinned hands. Why did James ever want him? How could he love him even?

Once in Robbie’s flat he couldn’t resist wrapping a hand around the back of James’ neck and pull him down for a kiss. James did not object, quite the opposite. Encouraged by James’ first passive but willing unresistance and then passionate returned kisses he backed James up against the door, pushing James legs apart with his knees and taking a firm hold of James hips, pulling the lad down to him, James sliding down the door, bending legs held apart until Robbie could push his groin into James’ and feel that James was responding too, that he too was growing almost as hard as Robbie. God, maybe tonight the lad would let him get somewhere. This was torture. He loved James with all his heart and he’d wait, he did understand, but he wanted him so bad sometimes it hurt...

James suddenly shoved against his shoulder with all his might. “N... no!”

Oh fuck! Again. Robbie was tired, he was old, he was hungry and he damned bloody rock hard and getting desperate with desire! He fought against a dark side of himself that wanted to ignore James’ wishes. Wanted to call him a bloody prick tease. But he was 58 not 18 and times were certainly different. He bit his tongue and took a step backwards.

“Alright love.”

“Sorry!” But as often with James the apology was spat out like a challenge, like an insult. Robbie let it ride.

“Let’s eat pet.”

James lay the table, warming the plates and takeaway alike whilst Robbie went to change out of his suit. He tried to ignore the bruise on his shoulder from James’ aggressive flat-handed shove. James always seemed stronger when he was having flashbacks or panic attacks or whatever he was doing when he went from making out to fighting. It was that old hind brain fight or flight mode, he supposed. And hadn’t he seen what damage people could do to each other when in such a state!

As he pulled on an old sweater Val had chosen for him and he couldn’t bear to part with, however threadbare it became, he glanced as her photo by her bed.

“Might have to move you one of these days bonny lass. I know you’ll understand. But,” Robbie sighed deeply, “maybe not tonight.”

James kept spare clothes at Robbie’s flat, although he’d not slept over much since the early days of the immediate aftermath of the assault and the trial of Mortmaigne. He’d changed into baggy jeans and an equally baggy hooded sweatshirt, pulling the sleeves over his hands and sucking one of the ties from the hood at his neck as he pottered about the kitchen. Bloody hell, sometimes the lad looked 21 not 31. What was he playing at, being with this child?

Man, not child, Robbie corrected himself. And if he has issues, and if he is in part still a child, it’s that bloody pervert Mortmaigne’s fault. And he was damned if he was ever going to give up on his awkward sod, but by God, he was so bloody awkward!


	8. The push

The next day they were back in Reading Crown Court. Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long to give evidence.

“I’ve leave owing,” Robbie said carefully as he drove them back to Oxford.

“Yes Sir,” James said neutrally. Robbie risked a glance at him. James’ jaw was set and tense.

“Lyn wants me to come up a stay. I know she has something to tell. I worry...”

“Something to tell?” James demanded. Robbie glanced at his sergeant again. He was looking furious – probably with himself for being personal and nosy. Still, he remembered the Counsellor’s advice. After last night he’d sat up late after James had left, thinking about how close he’d been to saying something they would both regret.

“Well, I dunno really. Call it a father’s instincts. Something’s bothering my lass and she seemed not to want to tell me on the phone. She’s dropping hints she wants me to come and stay.”

“A father’s instincts!” James spat out incredulously.

Robbie glared at him a few moments. “Aye,” he said carefully. “I’ve guessed you’ve not had the best example in the world, but the most of us love our kids. And it doesn’t stop us loving anyone else in any other way, love, not our friends, not our lovers. Alright? You don’t need to feel threatened by our Lyn. She loves hearing me talk about you. She wants to meet you.”

“Why?”

“She wants to see who makes her old Dad happy, I think.”

“Oh.”

“And you do pet.”

“What?”

“Make me happy.”

James snorted derisively. “I’m an insubordinate, rude, deceitful sergeant and a frigid, fucked up boyfriend. How can I make you happy?”

“First off, you are neither of those, you stupid sod, and second, I love you, you great idiotic lummox! Right,” Robbie added as he parked his car at the back of the station, a space as far from the door as you could get so late in the morning, “back to inspector-sergeant mode now. I ’spect Innocent will want to see me now, see how the court went. You can get us some sandwiches and tea and fill in the bloody forms from that court, alright?”

“Sir,” James said neutrally as he unbuckled his seatbelt and unfolded his long legs to climb out of the car. But Robbie could see he was smiling with his eyes and his shoulders were no longer hunched and tense.

Robbie told Innocent he was considering some extended leave; he had plenty owing. He even told her he was worrying about his Lyn. He didn’t mention James, but Innocent did, saying it would do him some good to be with another inspector for a while. Robbie suddenly felt his heart lurch. James was so... sensitive? Awkward? Too bloody clever and arrogant, maybe? No, but he came across as such.

“Who ma’am?”

“You’re worrying about him, aren’t you?”

“Well, ma’am, I’m thinking that most... erm...” How to say most of his colleagues were a bit on the insensitive side, a bit lacking in imagination, a bit... The words he was looking for was macho gits, but he didn’t say it. Innocent heard him anyway.

“In light of what he’s been through, I thought I might lend him to Laxton, she has a backlog of paperwork. That should keep him occupied.”

Well, it was a solution, he supposed, but a good one? “Won’t going through all those... cases, um...?”

“Take your leave Robbie, and leave James to me. I’ll look after him. I’m not as insensitive as all that you know? When were you thinking?”

“I’ve things to sort out ma’am. I’ll let you know.”

*

“What’s this then?” Robbie said, rooting through the carrier bag under James desk.

“Oh Sir! That’s not the...” James trailed off as Robbie looked up from the bag, bemused. James snatched the bag. “I thought we were eating too many takeaways. I was going to cook,” James said, sotto voice, and then louder, “Your sandwiches are on your desk Sir. That’s my shopping.”

“Got a date then sergeant?”

James blushed crimson as Robbie shut the door.

“Frozen pastry?”

“You like pies.”

“I do that. Go put it in the CID fridge, and make us another cuppa while you’re at it. Need to go early sergeant?” Robbie asked as James opened the door, his cheeks still -flushed slightly pink.

“Please Sir.”

Robbie watched as Ngoti and Hooper grinned at James as he walked past. He thought James had a feeling they ‘knew’ and Robbie watched him duck his head, seeing the blush spread back across the lad’s face. Sometimes Robbie felt torn, he wanted his sergeant to toughen up a bit, but he loved James the way he was, overly clever, socially awkward at times, naive, innocent and too sensitive.

*

“That was grand,” Robbie said, pushing back from the table at James’ flat. James had made chicken and mushroom pie, serving it with peas, carrots and buttered Jersey new potatoes. He’d even made pudding, a lime cheesecake, “From a mix,” James had mumbled as if apologising. He’d apologised a lot, for the ready-made pastry, for the pre-cooked chicken breasts, for the tub of shop-made béchamel sauce. Robbie had tried to reassure him during the meal that what he’d produced was a damn sight healthier than their usual takeaways and a genius of cooking compared to what he, Robbie, would be able to manage.

“I’m so full,” Robbie groaned now. “I’d offer to clear the table and wash up for you pet, but I doubt I could move.”

James smiled. A happy, relaxed sort of smile Robbie rarely saw. Or anyone, he suspected. “I’ll do it. You make yourself comfortable on the sofa. Put on the TV. Do you want more wine or shall I make coffee?”

“Tea’ll do me love. Ta.”

James joined him after a while, a soap bubble on his wrist, with a cup of tea and one of coffee. He curled up on the sofa next to Robbie, putting his head on his lap. “Mind if I put on BBC4, I’ve been watching this programme on the Byzantines.”

“Your TV pet.”

One long arm snaked out to the coffee table for the remote before he returned to hugging tightly onto Robbie. Robbie leant back and closed his eyes, allowing his fingers to play gently with James’ short hair. This was nice. He’d missed this as much as the other. He shouldn’t push it tonight; he should just enjoy what they had. James was lovely tonight, relaxed, if somewhat trying to play a perfect wife. Maybe he was as relaxed as he seemed, maybe he was threatened by Lyn? Robbie was so tired of second guessing him.

When Robbie opened his eyes it was dark outside and the history documentary had been replaced by a repeat of an ancient prog rock music show from the seventies. BBC4 must be going through one of their history of obscure British music things. He and Val used to watch it, back in Newcastle, before Lyn, when he’d first been promoted and moved to Vice. What was it called, something weird? ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’, that was it.

He sat up. “Must be late. Didn’t mean to sleep love. I’d better be going.”

“You can stay.”

Robbie reached out and touched James cheek, marked by the weave of his suit trousers where James had leant his head. “Sure?”

“You won’t... try anything, will you?”

“When you want, whatever you want, I keep saying that James. Trust me. Please.”

* 

Everything of James’ was too narrow and skinny for him, but rather than just sleep in his boxers, Robbie kept on his shirt, not so much for modesty, but to make James feel safe. He pottered about in the kitchen making hot chocolate while James nervously took himself off to the bathroom. Cocoa at bedtime felt like something he could do to reinforce the safe feeling, something cosy and familial, not sexy and romantic.

James came out wearing a tight blue tee shirt over blue patterned pyjama trousers. James would probably call them lounge pants or something, but to Robbie they were pyjamas, however modern and tight. God he looked so young.

And damned hot too. He had the most gorgeous body to match that beautiful face of an angel. Against his will Robbie slowly began to grow hard, just by looking at James.

“Uh, I made us cocoa,” he stumbled out. “You best get me your spare quilt love, I think I’ll sleep on the sofa.”

James frowned. “Okay.” He walked off and then paused by the living room door. “I can trust you, can’t I?”

“James, you know you can!” Robbie got out gruffly, tired at the constant reassurance.

James cane back with a quilt and pillow and then settled himself back next to Robbie on the sofa, picking up the hot chocolate.

“We had cocoa at bedtime at school,” he said.

“What about home?” The question had escaped his mouth before Robbie had time to vet himself.

James scowled. “Sometimes. Mostly I had to stay out of the way.”

An answer! Bloody amazing. “Where’d learn to cook so well James? The Seminary? As a student? Can’t see a posh boy’s school teaching domestic science somehow.”

“M’mum,” James mumbled, his voice losing all rounded public school edges and sounding very local. “She wa’ the pas’ry chef a’ Crevecoeur ’all.” Then he looked up, as if shocked by what he’d said.

Not really knowing what to do Robbie reached out and gently cupped James chin with his hand and pressed the lightest of kisses on James’ suddenly honest lips.

All Robbie had meant was to show love, nothing more. He was taken by surprise as slender but strong hands took hold of the sides of his face and the kiss was returned with passion, James taking the lead for the first time, James’ tongue probing his lips and parting them, James’ hot tongue licking his lower lip and then tracing his teeth in his mouth. He was lying then back, pulling Robbie on top of him, still kissing, hands moving from face to undo the buttons of Robbie’s shirt.

Robbie needed no more encouragement. He was kissing back hard, taking control back just as James relinquished it. He was moving hands down, along James’ sides, pushing up James’ tee shirt, running hands over bare skin, feeling skin to skin contact at last, revelling in the warmth of it, rejoicing in James’ lack of resistance. Things moved on, Robbie’s brain struggling to keep up with mouth, hands and other bits. He didn’t really recollect pushing down James’ pyjama bottoms and getting his hand around James’ cock, nor did he remember guiding James’ hand into his boxers and to his, but he must have done. Instinct or passion had over taken all rational thought again as suddenly he was pushed with all James’ strength and he fell heavily and awkwardly off the sofa and on to the floor with a thump, landing on his hip and then back as he rolled.

“Aaaggh! Fuck! James!” he stumbled painfully to his feet, hand rubbing at his lower back, feeling the throb of the return of the backache and a stab of a blossoming bruise on his hip. He stared at James in disbelief.

James stared up at him from the sofa, chest heaving and looking for all the world like a trapped animal.


	9. The reaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How can u just leave me standing?  
> Alone in a world that's so cold? (so cold)  
> Maybe I’m just 2 demanding  
> Maybe I’m just like my father 2 bold  
> Maybe you're just like my mother  
> She’s never satisfied (she’s never satisfied)  
> Why do we scream at each other  
> This is what it sounds like  
> When doves cry
> 
> When Doves Cry by Prince

James stared up at him from the sofa, chest heaving and looking for all the world like a trapped animal.

“Why’d you fucking do that for? We were bloody getting somewhere! You liked it! I can tell you liked it.”

“Never put your hand there!” James shrieked loudly, sounding more than half hysterical.

“You wanted it! You started it and you wanted it! I had my hand there, I bloody know you were loving it, so don’t you bloody deny it!”

“You... you put my hand... there... you made me... do that... You promised me...” James’ voice was still high with stress, but he sounded less hysterical, more like a frightened child. Normally this made Robbie feel protective and guilty, but today it just made him even angrier. James wasn’t a bloody child and he wasn’t Mortmaigne – nor any of the bloody others. James probably didn’t recognise or remember him, but Robbie knew James hadn’t always been so uptight and frigid from the abuse. He’d been a knowing little slut once, and he’d been damn well leading him on.

Afterwards, Robbie hated himself. Afterwards, Robbie was so incredibly ashamed of himself. Afterwards, Robbie wanted to take back all his words and actions. Afterwards, when James forgave him, he felt sick to the stomach with the knowledge James had known and expected no better and Robbie had not surprised him or let him down. But Robbie knew he’d let them both down.

“You fucking bloody prick tease!” Robbie yelled down now at James, gesturing violently with a pointing finger. “You started this! You wanted it! I felt you bloody want it. I’m so pissed off with you leading me on like this. You’re just a bloody uptight cock teasing slut and I can’t do this anymore.”

“You made me put my hand on your cock!” James yelled defensively.

Robbie was tired, he was stressed, he’d over-eaten and drunk a lot of beer and wine that evening. He’d been led finally to almost the brink of orgasm only to be pulled back with violence and pain. He didn’t hear the words not said, he didn’t hear what James was really saying – ‘Mortmaigne did that to me, he guided my hand like that’ – he heard the voice of his bruises, his frustration at however patient and understanding he tried to be it wasn’t enough and deep down, right then, in pain and drunk he heard the echoes of a long ago working class, Northern upbringing of the sixties and seventies, of sexism and a man’s right, of dollybirds and tarts, of bisexual playing and real fucking queens who took. Robbie was awash with years of frustration. Not just the couple of months since the assault, not the four months since he’d admitted to himself how he felt, what he wanted, but years of it, years of those big pale made-up eyes staring with love and lust while claiming he was celibate, faking relationships with women and babbling about chocolate and shoes. Robbie lost it.

“I’m fed up with you bloody hurting me James!” he yelled. “I’m covered in bruises and I’m sick of it. Me Da’ would have given me Mam a slap if she’d have clouted him and you so deserve a bloody slap for all this. I’ve tried to understand, haven’t I? God knows I’ve tried to understand! But you bloody lead me on and then it’s ‘oh, I’m scared Sir’, well fuck you James! You fucking cock teasing bitch, you are going to get payback for the way you’re bloody humiliating me!”

Robbie hauled back his arm, balling his fist as he did so. He didn’t see in his red mist James push himself back into the sofa, eyes wide with fear and recognition. He didn’t hear James’ shaking, quiet very Oxfordshire voice repeat, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry...”

As Robbie was prepared to strike he seemed to see Val in the corner of James’ living room looking at him sorrowfully as at the same time, not for the first time since James was raped, he heard that long ago, familiar voice, this time with the full weight of authority of his Chief Inspector: “Lew-is! What the hell do you think you are doing?”

Robbie lowered both arm and head. He turned his back on James and busied himself with dressing himself, finding his shoes and jacket. He grabbed his keys and headed for the door without a word. One word halted him, softly spoken and nervous.

“Sir.”

“What James?” Lewis growled, turning to look at James, still curled up on the sofa, still pressing himself into it like a frightened child hoping to disappear. James’ eyes, still wide with fear and brimming with unshed tears.

“You’ve had too much to drink. Let me call you a taxi. You can’t risk your career on one night.”

James! Thinking of him. Thinking of his career. Shaking Robbie stood where he was by the door and put his head in his hands, his eyes burning with tears he refused to shed. 

“Sir! Robbie!”

“Oh God James? What have I done? I didn’t mean any of those things. I’m so sorry. You must hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” James said in a small voice. “I know I’m difficult. I know I lead you on. You had a right to...”

“I had no bloody right!” Robbie roared.

James flinched.

They stayed where they were for a long time, not speaking to each other, not looking at each other, each masking their tears.

Eventually James spoke again. “I’m no good for you. I know I’m no good for you. I am all those things you said about me and you should finish with me. I’ll understand. If you want me to leave I will – not a transfer, you’re the only thing that makes working in the police bearable, but I’ll find another job. There must be something I could do at one of the colleges with my degree.”

“What?” roared Robbie, standing up and striding over to the sofa. He was shocked and heart-broken. He didn’t mean to sound angry, he didn’t even realise he was until it registered that James was flinching back again. “I mean,” Robbie said, horrified again by his own behaviour, “I don’t want to lose you, not at work and not from my life.” He sat down carefully at the other end of the long sofa to James, keeping a person’s width between them.

“I’m rubbish,” James mumbled, looking down. “Too broken.”

“No. No you’re not.” Robbie took a deep breath. They were going to have to talk about this. They couldn’t runaway any longer. It was going to be incredibly hard. “Maybe you’re not the only one broken.”

James’ looked up, his eyes now focused on Robbie. “What?”

“I’m obviously a bit broken myself. I never meant any of those things I said James. Believe me. I shouldn’t have said any of them.”

“Still true.”

“True? What’s true? Don’t talk daft!”

“I am leading you on. I am a tease. It must be hell for you, especially after all those years alone. You should dump me and ask out Dr. Hobson.”

“Away with you man. I said don’t talk daft. I love you James – YOU!”

“But...”

“But nothing. Alright, you say it’s all true – are you doing this deliberately to me? Leading me so far then hurting me. You’re not even just saying no half the time are you, just lashing out in panic. Is it all planned?”

“NO!!! Of course it isn’t. I want you to... I love you Sir. I do. I know I’m not very good at saying things but listen, now: I love you. I don’t want to lose you!”

“If it’s not deliberate then you can’t help it and I shouldn’t have said those things. Shouldn’t have said them anyway. Acting like some bloody caveman. Dammit James! I hate myself. If only I could take those words back. I didn’t listen to you – really listen. I always need to listen to what you’re not saying James – always! And it’s bloody hard. But you have to help me. Please!”

“What? What do you mean?”

“You need to tell me – explain. It’s my fault, I said you didn’t, but you said one thing and you meant another, didn’t you. You get triggered I guess, something from when you were wee. How old were you when he started? Like Briony and Paul? Five, six? You must have stuff buried in there, then I come along and...”

“No! It’s not like that. It’s...”

“Isn’t it?”

“Alright!” James spat out. “It is! But I don’t want to talk about it!”

“Okay James. That’s fine. But you have to know it’s hard for me. I need to know what the rules are. I know you’re going to flashback to the truck and those bastards. They drugged you. Memories will come. But the other stuff – you’ve been living with this all your life. Can’t you give me a clue; give me a list of don’ts. I don’t want to touch you somewhere or in a particular way that triggers you pet. Can’t you see, I want to help you but you have to help me a bit to do it.”

James snapped, “I. Don’t. Want. To. Talk. About. It!” The he brought his knees up to his chest and hugged his legs, beginning to rock.

Robbie sighed and moved towards James, putting his arms around him, pulling his head down to his chest, stroking his hair. James wrapped his arms tightly around Robbie and held on tightly, burying in face his Robbie’s chest.

“I’m sorry James. I’m sorry pet. I try to understand. I hate myself for what I said. I’m sorry love, really.”

“I’m sorry. Sorry. But don’t make me explain, please.”

“Alright love. But I need a break pet, I do. And I’m so worried for my Lyn I need to see her. Maybe that’s why I lost my temper, eh?”

James pulled away abruptly, sitting up and staring. “What? You’re leaving me!”

“I’m going to Manchester. To see Lyn. I’ll text you everyday love. I thought last night I needed to get away, and we need to cool things down, okay?”

“Don’t leave me!”

“I’m not. I’m visiting me daughter. Okay?”

James sniffed. And then nodded. He took a deep breath. “Okay.”

* 

The following day was a Friday. Robbie went straight to Innocent to arrange for ten days leave, effective immediately. He’d left James’ flat early, to get to his to shower and change. No point turning up in the same suit, shirt and tie and kick starting the office gossips. When he got back to his office he was informed that Hathaway had phoned in sick.

All day James ignored phone calls, texts and e-mails. Robbie couldn’t get away as early as he had planned, he had too much to sort out before he could take leave. He wasn’t going to leave any job half done for another DI or the DCs, and certainly he wasn’t going to let James carry him. All day he worried and fretted about James. He couldn’t get the image of James, left wrist a collection of bleeding slashes, that time he’d self harmed after Mortmaigne’s trial. Nor could he forget how James looked that morning as he made him a cup of tea before he left: like a kicked puppy. He was sure if he’d been at Robbie’s he’d be sitting in the suitcase.

Robbie grinned, despite himself. Perhaps not. Still, he was worried. But despite his concern he did not give into the temptation of getting uniform to go around and check him. James had claimed to have gastric flu. He seemed fine when he’d left, but perhaps he had, these bugs could come on so fast.

When he finally managed to get away he stopped off and brought James his favourite expensive organic chocolates and, in case he was really ill, a bottle of Lucozade.

James looked deeply unhappy when he opened the door, but not sick. He didn’t say a word, just left the door open and wandered back inside. Robbie followed. James had curled back up, not on the sofa, but his armchair. He looked up miserably.

“You’re going then? Innocent give you leave?”

“Yup. I got you these.” Robbie passed James the bag. “Didn’t know if you were really sick, so ignore the drink then.”

“Sick at heart. I’ve been to see my doctor. I’m going back on the Seroxat. She wants me to have counselling, but I won’t talk about him. I won’t. You will come back, won’t you? What if Lyn needs you more?”

“Lyn will always need me, but not in a way to threaten you love. James. Please try to understand.” Robbie took a deep breath. He’d been thinking on this all day, knowing how insecure and threatened James was feeling. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it out to James. “Here, you look after this ’til I’m back. Then you know I have to come back.” Val’s ring that he’d had enlarged after she passed and wore every day for the first three years since she was gone. “Take it.”

“Sir. Robbie. I can’t. It’s...”

“Look after it for me. Keep it safe. If you can’t trust me on me word alone, then take it.”

James shook his head. “I trust you. I’m being silly, I know.” he sniffed. “I can’t take your wife’s ring Sir. I know I’m being such a big kid on this. It’s just...”

Robbie just held out his arms. James stumbled to his feet and fell into those arms, beginning hug, wracking sobs. Robbie just held him and stroked his back, making soothing circles, and stroked his hair.

“Feel better?” he asked once James had stopped.

“Sorry.”

“It’s me that’s sorry. It’s unforgivable how I spoke to you last night.” Robbie sighed. But they had to move on, “So, are we getting a takeaway or what? I’m starved.”

“Um. Shall I cook again? I’ve not got much in, but there’s rice. How does risotto sound? With a green salad?”

“Healthy?” offered Robbie with a smile.

James picked up the box of chocolates and waved at Robbie. “There’s always these for pudding.” He grinned.

“There is that. So, what do you want me to do then?”

“Well, could you nip out and get us a nice bottle of white, something Italian maybe? And some mushrooms? Oh, and I’m nearly out of teabags.”

“No teabags!” Robbie cried in mock horror. “I’m on me way!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven’t stolen my daughter’s ghostly Morse series, or even borrowed it. As far as the writer is concerned, Val and Morse are externalisations of Lewis’ own conscious.
> 
> The reference in Lewis’ thoughts to James in past being a ‘knowing little slut’ comes from the first chapter of my story ‘An Arrest’ here http://archiveofourown.org/works/221085/chapters/333670  
> And obviously Robbie Lewis does remember. There they go, not talking or communicating again.


	10. The niece

Robbie Lewis, of course, fully intended to visit Lyn but first he had made a promise to go to talk to someone. He didn’t hold with counsellors and the like and he was far too embarrassed to go to his GP and discuss the situation even if he were. As for going through his employer for a referral, that was way off the menu! So, as he had said, he intended to visit his niece who ran a New Age Retreat and Healing Centre in Northumbria.

He hadn’t seen Susan – or Willow as she called herself now – in years, not since the summer before he lost Val. She had been on some sort of course in therapy in Oxford and she had stayed with them for three weeks. She had been the perfect house guest, helpful and charming and kept Val company on the long nights he had put in during an unpleasant child killing. He’d come home to the smell of incense and weird jangly music to find Val and Willow curled up on the sofa laughing and talking. It had been nice not to come home to Val’s pinched worried face after he was another three hours late and she knew how these child murders affected him. The downside had been the strict vegetarian food that Val insisted they respect. But Val had been like that – always respectful of others beliefs and ready to embrace new ideas. James knew a lot about all belief systems but despite his super brain seemed determined to stay stuck with his medieval self-loathing beliefs – and don’t tell him James did not still carry them or not go to Mass still!

Listen to himself; comparing his Val to James.

Robbie had decided to take the train – that way neither Innocent nor James could insist on his coming back. He had ten days of reflection and family and a bit of peace. It was strange, he wondered, watching the Oxfordshire countryside flash past during the first hour of his journey, that he had come so far in accepting his bereavement that he could look forward to a bit of quite time alone with his thoughts. He still loved Val with all his heart and it was still a pain, but a dull ache in his heart, not a constant unbearable pressure. Maybe that was time, or James, or both?

He dozed and woke up some hours later past Manchester somewhere in Yorkshire. He reckoned he had two hours to go and got up and went to the bathroom and then onto the buffet carriage. This was a grand idea, much less stressful than driving. He got himself a bacon bap, a tea and a packet of crisps and one of biscuits and went back to his seat. Despite what James and Innocent thought of him, he was far from being an imbecile and had managed to get a good deal on his seat on line that night after he had made up his mind. The Counsellor was right, he was of no use to James like this, he needed help to help James. Another reaction like the other night was too great a risk.

He looked out of the window. The quality of sunlight was defused, different, northern. He forgot this. He lay back and ate and watched the countryside and towns and cities flash by and tried hard not to think of James and those pale blue hurt almond-shaped eyes staring at him as he had boarded the train, trying hard not to cry or cling. James was always so buttoned up and controlled but just lately things spilled out, not only his flashbacks and triggered and groomed behaviour when they were alone together as lovers – well, almost lovers! – but at work. James twice in recent times had had to be pulled back, both times with men who had been abusive to women in different ways. He hoped that Innocent would keep to her word and look out for him.

He spent the night in a hotel near to the station and that morning set off early to lay flowers on his parents’ graves before taking the bus out into the country across to the Northumberland National Park. Then it was either walk or taxi but as luck had it the Retreat’s mini bus was meeting the coach for some new guests and Willow’s partner.

“Look who I found,” Gwyn said, showing Robbie in the private rooms at the back of the old farmhouse, completely converted with a dining room, meeting room, meditation and prayer room along with small rooms for various treatments. Barns had been converted into a spar and more meeting rooms and the land was laid out with gardens and behind were the log cabins and yurts the guests stayed in.

Willow was in the middle of doing the accounts, her long hair tidied roughly up and speared in a bun with what looked like a knitting needle.

“Uncle Robbie? This is a surprise! What are you doing here? Um, this is great...” She pulled off her reading glasses and stood, appearing more flustered than Robbie could remember.

Casting aside the brief worry he was old enough to have a niece who needing reading glasses he began to reassure her,

“I thought I sent an e-mail telling you to expect me. I didn’t get a reply so I assumed it was okay. I’m sorry if you’re busy, I just needed a quiet place to stay to get my head in order and...”

“No no. I didn’t see your e-mail. Sorry.”

“It’s here. In spam.” Gwyn waved his Iphone. “I’ll make some tea. I expect you’d prefer Indian Robbie. I’ll get you some Camomile babe.”

“Thanks pet. Sit down Uncle Robbie.”

“Away lass, you’re much too big to be calling me Uncle. And I need your advice and it’ll be hard enough for me without you calling me Uncle like you’re still a wee girl.”

“I was sorry. About Auntie Valerie. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the funeral.”

“I know. I got your lovely letter. I didn’t get around to reading them all some three and a half years on you know, but I did in the end. Your Mam came, which was kind of her. And your step-Mam.”

“Did Dad?”

“He held me together pet. I heard about him and Janine splitting up. Is he doing okay?”

“I think so. He sees all the kids a lot and let’s face it, he’s no Auntie Valerie.”

Robbie grinned wryly at her. “We were so bloody lucky. CID and marriage often doesn’t mix.”

Gwyn came back with tea and a plate of scones with jam and what Robbie knew couldn’t be cream but looked like it. “Soya or rice milk Robbie?” he asked. Robbie looked to his niece confused.

“Rice milk is nice in tea,” she said.”

“That then.”

“I’ll leave you and see to the guests. I’ve been leaving Flora in charge.”

They sat and made small talk for a while longer. The tea had a strange after tang but the soya ‘cream’ was alright, like the butter cream his Gran had made when money was tight – sugar and fat whipped together. The scones were fine, light and fluffy.

“I’ve found someone,” Robbie finally said.

“Oh Un.. Oh Robbie, I’m so pleased for you.”

“He’s a he.”

“Am I supposed to be shocked? I suppose Dad might. Does he know?”

“I’ve told no-one in the family except Lyn so far. It’s complicated.”

“Well, I suppose it must be. Have you always known you were bisexual?”

“I don’t think I put a label on it really. There were lads as well as lasses when I was young, before Val, but the whole glam rock thing was out there and being AD/DC was trendy back then, as long as you weren’t a real poof things were ‘cool’, you know?” Robbie made invisible commas around the word cool as he said the word. “Ah, things were so different back then. For gay people, for women, and I suppose I thought I was just experimenting, you know? I fell in love with a woman, we got married in a church, we had kids, she stayed at home, it’s how things were done back then. You didn’t question it. I supposed if it were a lad I’d fallen in love with back then...” Robbie shrugged. “But I didn’t. And me and Val were happy, I loved her, I never looked at another person, not a man or woman. Afterwards... afterwards, well, I went to pieces...”

“I know. Dad said. You got a transfer, to the West Indies somewhere? Suppose to straighten you out?”

“Not the first year. Drank worse then ever. But there was no-one else there. I came back and the new Super sent this lad to meet me at the airport. Tall, skinny blond thing he was, pretty though. See Willow, this man in my life, he’s me sergeant and he’s younger than our Lyn.”

“So, you’ve been with him since then? Isn’t it nearly five years since you came back?”

“Oh no! It’s been a long slow thing, slowly realising I fancied him that I loved him, that I was in love with him. He’s a right awkward sod, too, all tightly buttoned up, you’d not know half of what goes on in his head. Clever sod too, Cambridge, Seminary...”

“A Seminary?”

“Seminary, yeah. He was gong to be a priest. Don’t ask me why he left and joined the police, I don’t know. Things with James get revealed by accident, like...”

“Like?” Willow prompted as her uncle tailed off in thought.

“Like I thought he was dead posh, but no, he came from quite a poor country family and got a scholarship to a posh boy’s school. And that...” he broke off again, remembering the state of James during and immediately after the Black case.

“Robbie? Uncle Robbie?” Willow reached across and touched her Uncle’s arm. He was gazing out of the window, watching wind chimes twirl in the breeze in the garden, reflective metal and crystals catching the light.

“He was sexually abused, as a wee kid, from about five or six. He won’t talk about it, but I think his parents knew and let it carry on. They worked on a big old country estate, you see, and the Marquis was abusing him.”

“The Mortmaigne case?”

“Yeah.”

“You were the DI on that?”

“I was the DI on the murders that led to the abuse being uncovered, but I didn’t investigate the four decades of the abuse. How could I? Not only is it not my usual area, I was too close, my sergeant was a victim.”

“Poor... James is it?”

“James, yeah. James Hathaway. He’s 31 and I’m 58. I’m his boss. It’s a pattern, you see, it bothers me.”

“Have you done anything to push him, to make him feel he needs to... you know...?”

“We’ve done nothing but kiss Willow. I only got the courage to let him know how I felt back in May but... but... but...”

Willow came and sat next to her Uncle and held his hand. Robbie looked down at her little smooth hands holding his and took a big gulp of air, “He was drugged, abducted and multiply raped and sexually tortured.”

Willow suppressed her own shock and just squeezed her uncle’s hands tighter.

“We need help Willow. I need help. I can’t talk to my boss – she doesn’t know about us – or my GP and if I found a private counsellor, even if I trusted such people, you know? Someone in CID is bound to find out and it’ll get back to my boss and... I’m either triggering his childhood memories or he flashes back to the rapes and hits out and me and panics and last time he did I... I...”

“What?” Willow asked softly.

“Oh God! I nearly hit him and called him a prick-teasing bitch. I can’t forgive myself.”

“Oh Uncle Robbie...”


	11. Healing

Robbie stayed the weekend, resting, walking and reading. His niece made him hand her his phone – rules of the retreat – but she did not ask or expect him to take place in any of the workshops or group work. She gave him the family guest room in the farmhouse rather than one of the cabins or yurts and gave him the option of meals in his room, which he declined. He wasn’t one to be entirely on his own for great lengths of time. He suspected, given a pile of books and his guitar, James could quite happily stay in a beautiful room overlooking the Northumbria National Park for 48 hours without talking to anyone in all that time quite easily. But Robbie was a social creature, and interested in people, so at meal times he quite happily mixed with the guests, a mix of mostly middle class white types from the nearby cities of Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool but some had come all the way up from London, and he had a chat with an Oxford professor, a woman whose marriage had recently broken down, who had come to re-discover the person she had been before she married. Reading between the lines, Robbie got the impression that despite her education and good position in Oxford, she had been quite controlled and mentally if not physically abused. He felt vaguely responsible, as if Thames Valley should be doing more to protect women from controlling bastards. But controlling men were on his mind; the Roschenkovs, Mortmaigne, and mostly James’ father.

The food was vegan and mostly incredibly healthy, although Sunday hadn’t been two bad; the vegan equivalent of the full English – baked beans, mushrooms, button fried and field grilled, tomatoes, vegan sausages and rashers that weren’t half bad, hash brown, fried potatoes and toast. Then a Sunday roast of a nut and bean thing with all the trimmings and gravy, even Yorkshire pudding, although how it was done without eggs he had no idea. He wondered if James could do a good roast, his Val had always served them up a treat, although half the time he’d be called away. Maybe not half the time, but a fair bit of the time. And at times, Morse had joined them. Begrudgingly, on Val’s side, but she knew how Robbie had worried about his boss, especially in his last few years. Poor Morse. At least James, when he was on his own, was far more domesticated. Although knowing how to cook and cooking for yourself were two separate things. James liked to cook for him though. But was he being old-fashioned, or sexist, expecting his boyfriend to look after him in the same way as his wife? After all, he’d said to Willow, things were different them.

He helped Willow, her boyfriend and teenage daughter, Flora, tidy up after the Sunday meal and when it was just the two of them in the kitchen, he asked her what he thought.

“I don’t know. If you’re pretty helpless in the kitchen and he likes to cook – although you never struck me as some chauvinistic pig uncle Robbie. You washed up and did your fair share of cleaning and baby-sitting didn’t you? People sort out their own domestic arrangements to how it works for them, I don’t think it’s down to gender and what you do in bed, even if it ever was. Are you sure you don’t want to talk to anyone here? We have a brilliant guy, Sean, as well as all the others. I know crystals or aromatherapy or past-life regression isn’t your thing, nor any of our more tailored stuff for people, but Sean is a qualified therapist, he has a practice in Newcastle too. He does transpersonal counselling and psychotherapy. I can give him a call; see if he’ll see you. Not for proper therapy, just a chat Uncle Robbie. Please. I feel out of my depth and I know you are, it’s why you came isn’t it?”

“A friend advised me to get away. Ah I don’t know! To get some head space, some distance I supposed. The countryside and the peace has done that pet, honestly.

“If you’re sure... but don’t go overanalysing everything now you’re here and you’ve got the space to think. Please.”

Robbie laughed. “Marvellous! Now there’s two of us overanalysing, whatever will we do?” Willow looked at her uncle, confused. “Ah, pay no attention to me love. It’s James, it’s what he does, think things through too much, analyses everything, like nothing comes naturally to him.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps it was what happened to him, or perhaps it’s the way he’s made. Or a bit of both even. I’d love to meet him, bring him up here one day when you’re more sorted. But Uncle Robbie, look, don’t feel bad or guilty, if he wants to look after you, cook and clean for you, let him. At the moment, it’s the only way he’s got to show you how much he loves you, right?”

“Yeah,” Robbie sighed and went for another walk in the hills.

 

*

 

In the end Robbie decided a chat couldn’t do any harm. If it got irritated, he could politely put the ‘chat’ at an end.

“Sometimes, it can be lonely, caring for someone,” Sean said into the silence that descended after the two men had said hello. He was an ordinary looking man, a few years younger than Robbie, yet already white and grey in his hair and neatly trimmed beard. He wore jeans and a shirt, no ‘hippie’ baggage or beads or bright colours like Robbie’s nephew-in-law.

Was he caring for James? Was he James’ ‘carer’? That sounded heavy. He was his boss, his friend, now his ‘boyfriend’ for want of a better word, although he was 58, surely too old to be a ‘boyfriend’! To others, looking in, he supposed James could look like his ‘toy boy’. Frightening thought, that. 

“I’m just trying to help the lad through the trauma, the recent stuff and his childhood.”

“With no ulterior motive, of course.”

Well, he did want James. Wanted to shag him. But if James hadn’t indicated how he felt about him, he’d still want to help the boy. He’d been trying to ever since the Black Case, but he’d not known how and James wanted everything hidden away, to pretend nothing happened. James was like that about everything! He’d only been his sergeant a few months for Robbie to work that out. The day they had met at the airport, the name James Hathaway had chimed in his memory. After Crevecoeur Hall, he remembered, but went back through his old notebooks just to check. But James would not take kindly to be reminded of being arrested for solicitation at fifteen, and certainly not what he had told Morse about his father and the men he took his son to. He could only assume James didn’t remember Morse’s sergeant, although given James’ phenomenal memory it didn’t seem likely.

“I love the lad, and I’d help him come what may. But James says he wants me, and then he panics...”

Sean just sat, silent, waiting.

Robbie looked out of the window. The room they sat in looked up at the back of the land, to the cabins, and yurts, little winding paths with rock gardens and ornamental pools, statues of Buddhas and Hindu gods in places, wind chimes hanging every now and then.

Then he found himself speaking, in more detail than he did to his niece. From coming back home from the opera to finding the bruised, bleeding, still drugged James on his doorstep to James’ recent flashbacks that caused him to punch him; from his initial anger at whoever had hurt ‘his’ James to his unforgivable loss of temper and calling James some nasty sexist and homophobic names. At his despair and guilt at readily James had been to forgive him.

“I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know what to do.”

“Tell me about him.”

“About James?”

“Not the victim, not the object of your desire. But James. The man who works for you. Your friend. The man who you fell in love with. Him. Not James the rape victim, as you seem to be defining him.”

“I’m not!” Was he? Maybe... “Ah, James Hathaway. He’s a stubborn, awkward sod. Intelligent. But not arrogant with it, not like my old guv. He’s probably one of the bravest men I know...”

Before he knew it, Robbie had talked solidly for nearly half an hour. He caught himself. “Sorry, I guess I’m a bit obsessed with him.”

“Don’t apologise. Do you have a picture of him?”

Robbie took out his phone and found a nice one, one he’d took in an idle moment in the meadow, James was lighting a cigarette, the shadow of a tree falling over him, the river in the background. If it had been in black and white it would have been like one of those moody nineteen fifties film star shots. He passed his phone to Sean.

“Nice shot,” he said. “Might I?” and he began to scroll through the photos. There were more on there that Robbie had realised, which, considering it was his work phone, was a bit stupid. A dead giveaway, who took so many photos of their sergeant looking gorgeous or smiling right at them? That self-same sergeant who never smiled at work and all!

“He’s young. Blond. Tall. He wears his clothes well, some very nice suits he has here. You didn’t mention any of that.”

“Didn’t I? He’s drop-dead gorgeous, I’d have thought I’d have said...”

“I asked you to talk of the real James, didn’t I? And you did, his very soul, his essence, the person you are in love with. I think you must be a rare soul yourself Robbie, looks and gender don’t matter to you, do they? You fall in love with the person.”

“Well, I have twice I suppose...”

“I know you are reticent about therapy or counselling, and I understand James is more so. I think he might have had a bad experience of counselling.”

“Aye, probably through his bloody church, at a guess. I don’t know though, but I would have thought when training to be a priest he might have had something. But a Catholic counsellor is hardly going to help him comes to terms with his sexuality, are they?”

“I can’t really comment. A good counsellor will always do what they believe is best. And Catholics don’t deny homosexuality exists, just that the person must remain celibate. If he was going to be a priest, he’d have been celibate anyway. Celibates have to acknowledge their sexuality. Has he been repressing it, do you think?”

“I think deny not repress. I don’t know. I really don’t. He’ll probably stop speaking to me if I suggest he gets proper help. And that’s no help, is it?”

Sean said nothing.

Robbie sighed. “I’ll try my best,” he finally agreed reluctantly.

“If not, and perhaps anyway, you might point him the direction of the sonnets and madrigals of Michelangelo, there is enough there on reclaiming and recovering sexuality and surviving trauma in the kind of poetic and medieval way that might speak to him the way we blunt, plain speaking twenty-first century therapists and counsellors overlook. But you must be able to find a transpersonal psychotherapist in Oxford, one who acknowledges spirituality, an outside divine force and a soul as much as mind and body that respects each person’s path and beliefs, rather than just a regular counsellor or another Catholic confessor. It doesn’t have to be either/or. At least try to make him realise that.”

“Can you write those suggestions down? And I will try. Or maybe, if you can recommend a book on those sonnets I’ll just buy them, as a gift.”

Sean smiled. “ I can that. And to paraphrase one of those sonnets, 

“When we come to the place of wounded sexuality, healing cannot start from the place of passion...

“Rather must the search be for other moments of bodily loving and touch, assured of another’s steady love...

“Only deep love and gentle touch and steady goodwill can heal...

“If the wounding is so deep that we can never reach the point where passion can be contained, we have to be loyal to these other ways of healing, and when we are, just as much love is made...”

“Beautiful. But the point?” Robbie asked.

Sean smiled again.

“I get it. Touch but not dirtily, nothing sexy at all.”

“Gentle touch. Holding hands. Hugs. Light kisses. Butterfly kisses and tickles. Massage. Don’t think of moving forward. Make him feel safe with loving touches. Has he had any as a child? That we don’t know and he’s not going to tell you in a hurry.”

“But, how do I stop myself... you know, like before.”

“That,” said Sean bluntly, “is what your right hand is for. In private. Don’t let him know, but don’t feel guilty if you relieve yourself to fantasies of what you would like to do to him. One day, you will. He will recover. But he needs time and patience.”

“I know.” Robbie sighed again. “That poetry, it’s his thing. And medieval madrigals you said. His thing too. You’d better write down the name of some book or other I can buy him. And I knew, about the gentle stuff, too, but I got stressed. I’ll cool things down if he starts stuff.”

“But be careful, don’t make him feel rejected.”

“I know. But it’s the guilt that’s been eating me, the fantasies, when I ... you know, it’s been making me feel like a shit, wanting to do that to him too.”

“You want it if he wants it, with his consent, to make him feel good. That’s a million miles from what he experienced. And one day, he might see that. If not, there will be plenty of other ways to explore each other and pleasure each other.”

Robbie almost blushed at Sean’s sudden frankness. But he was right. He also made him think there was a light at the end of the tunnel, it was just the journey through the tunnel was going to take longer, the tunnel was longer, than he had first thought. Ah, listen to his thoughts, he’d been with Willow and her hippie cliental and staff too long, he was going native!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The paraphrases of the sonnets and madrigals of Michelangelo have been taken from “That Night and Day Shall be a Single Whole: Cairns for a Journey” in “Prayer At night: A Book for the Darkness” published in 1983 by Jim Cotter. Unfortunately Mr. Cotter does not say which of the poetry he has paraphrased in his acknowledgements. I doubt it is still in print. My copy was given to me as a young teen by a kind and wise Anglican nun who, I see now, was gently trying to make me acknowledge my childhood was making me run away rather than I had any real vocation. It took me twenty something years to see it though :)


	12. Lyn

As instructed he waited for Lyn once he arrived in Manchester rather than make his way to her house or the hospital. Half an hour after he arrived he received a text telling him she was running late and sorry she couldn’t meet his train. He realised that he had told the time he was catching a train down but not that he was coming from Newcastle – she had obviously looked up the trains from Oxford and expected him to be arriving in the next few minutes! He sighed and ordered himself another tea and a sandwich, texting her the place he was in on the concourse.

It was almost another hour before Lyn came rushing up to him, hair falling out of her bun all over her pale face. She look wan, sick, with huge black smudges under her eyes and hollowed out cheeks. She also looked much thinner that he remembered, apart from a little rounded bump of her tummy. And that was obviously nothing to do with fat.

“Sorry. Sorry. I couldn’t get away. The hand-over went on longer than I expected, one of my patients had complications.”

“No bother, you’re here now pet,” Robbie said, pulling his daughter into a tight hug. She felt all skin and bone, far skinnier even than James at his worse a couple of months ago following his rape, when the boy had hardly eaten at all and even started to throw up when he did eat. Lyn’s shoulder blades were jutting out of her thin nurse’s uniform, and he had no doubt he could count all her ribs under the top. “Hey love! You’ve lost weight! Far, far too much. There’s nothing of you pet.”

“Oh Dad!” Lyn leaned into the hug, clinging tightly to her father as she had as a small child, when he could just chase away the monsters from the nightmare or make her feel safe after a bad time at school or heal the fever or the bruise with a hug and a kiss. But she wasn’t a little girl and he must be blind. “How can you say I’m skinny when I’m as fat as a whale!”

“This isn’t fat love, I’m not daft.” He put a hand gently on her bump under her dark blue nurse’s top. “Even more reason not to lose weight. That’s my wee grandchild in there.”

“Oh Dad!” Lyn burst into tears and clung all the tighter, burying her face in his chest.

Robbie held back for a while and then helped her back inside to a chair and ordered a pot of tea and a toasted teacake, handing her paper napkin after paper napkin from the table, until she had calmed down.

“He left me,” was all she said before liberally sugaring the tea her father had poured her. She sipped her tea and crumbled her teacake in an alarmingly similar manner to James a few weeks ago when the shadow of his teenage eating disorder had almost re-emerged with the pain eating had brought following his rapes. Robbie wanted to gather her up in his arms and make her eat. He was frightened by his intensity of how he wanted to protect her and make it all alright. He had grown used to feeling it for James but that was a mere echo of this parental desire to protect and nurture. But his Lyn was a grown woman, entitled to make her own mistakes, and no doubt it was either morning sickness or heartbreak. After a while she spoke again,

“Or rather, threw me out. I’m in a lousy bedsit at the moment. I couldn’t find anything else in a hurry. I know you’re expecting to stay, and I was too ashamed to tell you on the phone or in an e-mail and now I don’t know where you’ll stay.”

“We’ll sort that out later pet, okay. Let’s get you home now; you look shattered. We’ll get a taxi, okay?”

“I can’t afford...”

Robbie made a scoffing noise. “I’m your Dad, don’t be silly.”

 

*

 

It was a very small flat but not quite like the kind of bedsit the likes of the young PC Lewis lived in in the nineteen seventies – it didn’t share a bathroom for starters but had it’s own shower room and toilet! Plus it had a small but perfectly functional kitchenette. The main living room cum bedroom had a sofa and chair ranged around a TV and radiator, a shelving unit on the wall and Lyn had pinned scarves to make curtains to divide of the double bed, chest of drawers and wardrobe. It was small but modern. Ever since she had told him he had been imagining a Victorian crumbling tenement and damp and mould on the walls. This was a new built of self contained single person lets with central heating and no shared facilities. The down side was it was three flights up with no lift and Lyn was already showing and would get bigger by the day. One day she’d have to carry up a buggy and baby. He tried to imagine fitting a cot and all the rest of the stuff that went along with a baby and worried.

Lyn looked as white as a sheet as she flopped on to the sofa. Robbie pulled off her shoes and lifted her feet up onto his lap as he sat down. He began to gently massage her feet. “How far gone are you love?”

“Eight and a half months. Baby’s due in another three weeks.”

“Lyn! Could you not tell me!” He was now even more worried; surely she should have been bigger than she was if she was that far gone!

“Oh Dad. You’re always busy. When do you have the time? Besides, I didn’t want you judging me. I know you always liked Tim and couldn’t understand when I left him. I didn’t want you thinking I’d brought this all on myself.”

“How could you think that? I’d never judge you. You’re my daughter Lyn. I love you, and I’ll love that wee one there, whoever is the Dad. Oh Lyn, I know I’m always busy, work is, but I’ll always make time for you, always...”

“I know that now. Every time I got the courage and I’d ring and you were always with Hathaway and I thought...”

“Lyn, I told you...”

“You told me a couple of weeks ago Dad that there was something going, and I’m still not sure what! I always thought you were working. He’s your sergeant! What was I supposed to think?”

“I’m sorry if you think work comes first.” Robbie pushed her feet off him and stood up, walking to the window and looking out at another block of new build flats. “Maybe you’re right. It’s what Mark feels, I know, that I was not much of a Dad, but...”

Lyn came up behind him and hugged him tightly, her bump pressing into his back. “I’ve always been proud of you Dad, fighting criminals, finding murderers, keeping people safe. Always proud, and you were always there when it counted. I don’t know how Mark dare doubt your love and support. It’s me, I suppose. I was waiting for the right time. I think I see now, it wasn’t work; you were just hanging with your sergeant. Not your sergeant, your... boyfriend? You tried to tell me on the phone, but then you went on about no sex and Crevecoeur and abuse and then about him being raped in May and you supporting him that I thought maybe I misunderstood. But by then it was too late Dad, how could I tell you then I’d kept this from you for seven months. It was embarrassing. I’ve messed up so much, I really have.”

Robbie turned and cuddled her, stroking her hair. “No you haven’t. The baby’s father has. Why on Earth... Tell you want, I saw a chippie just a street away as we drove here. How about I get us some chips – could you try to eat a few chips? For the baby?”

Lyn smiled. “I feel sick most of the time, in the morning it’s the baby, the rest of the time I just think of him and being alone and... stuff. Chips would be nice. And... could you get me a couple of fish cakes? And mushy peas.”

“’Course pet. Will you make us some tea?”

As Robbie headed for the door Lyn asked, “Can I have a pineapple fritter too Dad?”

He smiled at her fondly and nodded.

 

*

 

After they had eaten Lyn began to tell her father all about the charming older man, the financial advisor who had injured himself playing rugby. That was when she was still in A&E – they transferred her to paediatrics after she started to get so tired with the pregnancy. She had to work up to the last minute; she needed the money.

“Oh Lyn, I have plenty, you only have to ask...”

“I’ve got my pride. Too much like you maybe?”

He was called Jeremy and he was married – separated, but still married, but Lyn didn’t find that out until too late, until she had moved in. She had dated him too, months before she had had the courage to tell Tim, too, so maybe she was as bad as him? Tim and she, well it had always been comfortable, there had been no spark. She’d not known she was missing that sparkle, that stomach lurching feeling of being in love, until she met Jeremy. She and Tim, well they had been best friends at college, trained at the same hospital, both got jobs in Manchester, it had all seemed so easy and planned, comfortable, but not exciting. She hadn’t known love was meant to make you dizzy until Jeremy,

“Well, you and Mum seemed so easy around each other.”

“She turned my insides inside out when I met her love. By the time you came along maybe thins had calmed down, but believe me, I never lost that little quickening of my heart when I saw her. Never.”

“Really, but I thought you had maybe...?”

“What?”

“No, it doesn’t matter.”

He had said he wanted a family with her. But she later found out he already had two girls with his wife and didn’t see them. He started to date his temp two weeks into her pregnancy, but she hadn’t known at the time. Nor did she know until much later that the reason he had a temp was that his secretary had been expecting his baby too, but had left on maternity leave.

“Oh love,” Robbie squeezed her tightly. “Sometimes I think men are all bastards.”

“Well, you’re not Dad, you’re lovely. But then, I’m beginning to think you’re gay.”

“I’m not gay. I loved your Mam; you never doubt that! Never. But I’ve been alone along time and James is... Well, James. I love him.”

“Does he make your heart flip too?”

“Maybe, but it’s slower. It’s a love that grew slowly, it’s different, I’m older. I think with James it might be like that, I think I’m his first love. It sounds so egotistical but maybe I make him forget to breathe. When he looks at me, it’s with such devotion, it’s flattering to an old man...”

“So what, is this a mid life crisis thing, this thing with James...?"

“Lyn, look love, I hate labels. Is anyone one thing or the other one hundred percent? But if it makes you understand, I’m bisexual, what we called AD/DC when I was a lad. I’ve always fancied men and women, lads and lasses when I was a teenager. But I loved your Mam with all my heart, and now I love James. I hope you can understand that.”

Lyn laughed. “Of course I can. Bisexual. It’s so simple when you say that. I don’t know what I was thinking! But James isn’t, is he?”

“James is gay, yes, and Catholic, and nearly a bloody priest, and a virgin and...”

“A virgin! Fuck! I mean, wow! Sorry Dad. But you said he was abused as a kid and then raped in the spring, that you were helping him?”

“That does not count in my book Lyn, it simply was violence, forced, not making love.”

“No. Right. Poor James. You know, I’ve spoken to him on the phone a few times as your sergeant, and you played me that weird music his band is in to, but I’ve never met him. I don’t even know what he looks like.”

Robbie instantly fished for his phone in his jeans pocket and scrolled through until he found his favourite photo he had. They had been in his car, on a stakeout, bored, and he had snapped it. James eyes shone at the attention, that his boss wanted his photo. His eyes were also made-up with white, sparkling eye shadow and brown mascara, along with lip-gloss on his slightly parted lips, in a little private James-smile that Robbie loved so much. James was wearing a dark pink tie and pale pink shirt with a dark ble suit. His hair had only just been allowed to grow a wee bit and he had gelled it up into the smallest of blond quiffs. He looked far younger than his 31 years. It was Robbie’s favourite photo. He had printed a hardcopy to keep under his pillow like a soppy teenage lad long before he had the courage to really admit to himself how he felt. He told himself it was because he cared, because the photo helped him remember how much his sergeant needed him, how vulnerable he was. It was two weeks after he had found out about Mortmaigne he had printed himself a copy. The photo itself had been taken just before the Zelinksy case.

Lyn looked a long time. She first thought: sticky out ears, long face, and an awkward smile. She then thought: he looks younger than me. Fuck! He looks younger than me! She then thought: he looks so gay! After that, she started listing things in her mind: male, blond, pretty (apart from the sticky-out ears!), young, dresses well and finally she thought that if it was Dad who took the picture and he was looking at her father then yes, James loved her Dad with all her heart.

“He’s very good-looking,” she said finally. “And he looks like he loves you if he is looking at you. But he’s so very young, people will judge, they will gossip.”

“Let them!”

“Will you bring him up? I want to meet him.”

“Of course I will love. Of course I can.”

 

*

 

Robbie stayed the week, he started of sleeping on the sofa but ended up sleeping next to his daughter, who he had not shared a bed with in over twenty years, but they were family after all and otherwise she was going on to the sofa and he didn’t feel like leaving her or arguing. They made plans. They went shopping, bought a buggy, a car seat, a cot and nappies and clothes by the score. He promised to be up for when the baby was born, murder permitting, with James if he could. He tried to persuade her to let him search for another home, a larger one, but Lyn said she liked her little bedsit and it would do fine for the first few months, if not the first year. After than, maybe she wouldn’t be so tired, maybe she could think more clearly.

He had gone north to escape from his worries about James. Now he returned home with a heap of worries about his daughter. And still his son ignored all e-mails, letters and texts and he wasn’t even sure if he had the correct address or e-mail anymore. When he got home he went straight to Val’s grave to discuss their daughter before going on to James’ flat with the presents Lyn had helped him pick out in an old flea market they had also found an old silver Victorian baby’s rattle in.

What could he do about his kids? He had his hands full with worries about James, and he wasn’t abandoning James. He might feel guilty, like he hadn’t been there enough, that he appeared to put work first – but that’s what a man did in those days, got a career, provided for his family! Feeling guilty was one thing, but when he looked at what James’ father was, what he had done, and he knew more than James let on, then Robbie knew he was a perfectly okay father, not perfect, no one was, but he had been more than adequate. “Have you done your best?” Morse had asked once, and he knew he had. He wished Morse were alive; he might take James under his wing, the grumpy bastard! He’d give James that gentle courtesy and understanding that he usually reserved for vulnerable women, for Robbie’s sake. And if that was sexist, well so what, James was every bit a victim of any girl or woman raped and abused!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this will be the last I can post here from Lewis' pov in this AU until I have written up my next case fic from the original summer without pc or DVD and I was making up all the stories for my daughter. So coming soon(ish) 'Poisoned Minds', currently three chapters written in long hand, four more in note form, the rest in mine and BK's heads! Expect Hobson doing a Quincy and Lewis and Hathaway undercover in the miserable world of poverty and drug addiction...


	13. The River

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is essentially a missing scene from the first chapter of Poisoned Minds

“There’s no need to drive, is there? I’ll never find anywhere to park, anyway,” Robbie said as they came out of James’ building and he headed up the road towards Lewis’ car parked on the kerb.

“Oh. Fine. We’ll get the bus.” James made to cross the road, which wasn’t too busy on the late Sunday morning.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Robbie set off towards the city centre.

“If you say so Sir,” James said neutrally.

“What? I hate it when you get like that work. Supercilious know-it-all sod. And for Chrissakes, James, we’re not at work. I’m on official leave. It’s Robbie. Robbie! I thought we were having a date – you know, romantic lunch on the river.”

“Yes Sir,” James deadpanned. Robbie lightly punched him on the arm and then slid his hand down James’ arm and grabbed his hand. James flinched and looked momentarily startled but then gripped back tightly.

Look at me, thought Robbie, walking hand in hand down the street with my boyfriend. Wonder what the lads back in Newcastle would make of it?

Beat the crap out of me, that’s what. I loved my Val with all my heart but I also couldn’t help but be so grateful that I did really love her.

Different now.

But was it, he thought, as a group of elderly American tourists glared at them as they walked past a B&B. A gaggle of Spanish girls walked past and giggled. James pulled his hand away and Robbie panicked that he was affected by stupid peoples’ looks. But James just lit a cigarette, but he didn’t resume holding hands. Good job too, Robbie decided a little later, when a patrol car drove past, the officer waving at them.

After fifteen minutes of brisk walking in the heat, the Plain still nowhere in view, Robbie stopped to get his breath back. “Oh. It’s a lot longer than it seems when you’re driving, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That’s why I thought we’d take the bus. I did say so.”

“Don’t you walk to work sometimes?”

“Yes, when off rota, I can’t have the car then. Frequently do anyway, there’s nowhere to park it really, and I don’t think I’d ever live it down it I got a police car broken into or stolen. It’s bad enough...” James shuddered and hugged himself, turning away from Robbie.

“Oh, lad. No-one is taking the piss, you know that.” He reached out a hand to James’ shoulder but he flinched again and pulled away. It broke Robbie’s heart all over again. James had only been making silly, sarcastic comments, as was his way, when he remembered all over again. It was a lesson for Robbie, it wasn’t just their new relationship where the pitfalls were; it was everything. He changed the subject,

“Shall we get the bus then?”

James turned back to him, smiling, “We’re nearly there now. But you said picnic, what shall we eat?”

“We had such a big breakfast, we could just get on the river and eat later?”

“We could, or we could take the next road to Cowley Road and pick up something there.”

Robbie thought of all the Asian food stores that would be open, and Tescos, but surely that would mean doubling back up, and he was in no mood to walk much more in this heat. It was nearly midday now; the sun was strong and unrelenting, glaring back of the reflected pavement. He wished he had sunglasses, but he felt James might laugh, like years ago he had at James’ ridiculously too small ones he’d impulsively thrown in the river. They hadn’t even been friends then, not really, getting that way, but it was before Will and all that unravelling mystery that was James Hathaway.

“Shall I just nip down Circus Street and get us something? You wait here... Robbie.” There was a little pause, as if he was consciously swallowing the Sir and saying Robbie. Sometimes Robbie wondered if James did it on purpose, that he liked calling him Sir, rather than forgot or found it hard to call him Robbie. Perhaps it was a bit of both?

He didn’t want to admit to being exhausted by the heat, admit to the huge age difference between him and James. But then, he wanted to punt, he’d always fancied giving it a go, and he wasn’t going to miss his opportunity. Besides, he was a lot older, he was nearly a grandfather! 

Shit, he was going to have to tell James, sooner than later, if possible. He had no idea how James would feel about it. He was threatened by his relationship with Lyn as it was.

“Yeah, okay.” He sat on a low wall in front of someone’s house. He watched James flick away his cigarette butt and jog off down the little side street that connected Cowley and Iffley Roads.

 

*

 

It took a lot of laughing, rocking of the boat, and splashing about before Robbie finally got the hang of punting, but once he had, it was smooth sailing – or punting! – up the Cherwell to the Meadows and fields up in north Oxford, far from the tourists, only seeing the occasional group of students not gone down for the summer. After a while James suggested their picnic. Robbie wasn’t really hungry but James, who had until recently hardly eaten since the rapes, and had even been making himself sick, had asked to eat, so who was Robbie to refuse him?

He clumsily guided the punt to the bank, a flat bit of grass under a willow. James leapt out and secured the boat to a tree root and then climbed back in a little more carefully.

“You do this, then, punting on the ‘Backs’, up at the other place?” Robbie teased.

“Uh huh,” James answered mildly, refusing to be teased, pulling open the blue plastic carrier bag from the Asian food shop. He fished out a paper bag and took out a large samosa and took a bite. He offered the other one in the bag to Robbie. “Want one?” he asked around fried pastry and spicy filling.

“I’m not really hungry. I think I ate you out of house and home this breakfast.”

“Possibly,” James agreed, nodding, still with a full mouth. “At least the sliced bread and jam.”

“You’re certainly hungry. You can have mine too love. Nice to see you eat.”

“I’m starving all the time just lately.”

“Eating for two?” Robbie said facetiously, but regretted it instantly.

“Is that homophobic or what? I’m not female, and you bloody should know the difference. I’m not Val!” James spat out aggressively, putting down his half-eaten samosa.

“It was just a silly bloody comment. I noticed this morning that you’d filled out a bit.”

“You calling me fat now, as well? You bastard!”

“No James... Look love, you were wasting away after... you know, after the truck and those men had... and... You’re not fat, just not too bloody skinny. James, I’m sorry... ”

James had hunched over, turned as much away from Robbie as possible on a narrow punt. He had started crumbling the pastry through his fingers and over the side. Ducks appeared in waves as if by magic, answering in that mysterious way they had the siren call of wheat products offered by humans.

“I was being a right dickhead. I meant nothing by it. Not sexist or homophobic or any of that crap. I was just teasing, being... well, being a dick. I’m sorry James.”

“Could have been though,” James muttered cryptically.

“Eh? Could be what?”

“If I were female. They could have made me pregnant. And then what would I have done? Abortion is a mortal sin but I wouldn’t want those bastards...”

“James, now you’re doing it. You’re not a girl. Far from it. Being gay isn’t the same as being transgendered, as your poor friends learnt to their cost.”

James snorted sadly.

“And if you were, we’d have dealt with it,” Robbie went on, reaching out to touch James on the shoulder. He didn’t flinch or shrug his hand away so he rubbed gently.

“How?” James turned his head to look directly at Robbie, his pale eyes glittering with something Robbie just could not identify. This was not like anything he’d talked through with Willow or Sean, the counsellor at Willow’s retreat.

This was bizarre. “This is beyond weird James, it’s completely theoretical and we’ve got real stuff enough to deal with and...”

“Humour me. How?”

Was this some kind of test? James had only just allowed himself to admit his own sexuality due to his faith, and when he was trying to be straight and dating he did nothing as he took the whole sex out of wedlock thing seriously. Abortion was a huge issue for Catholics. “I’d have married you and we’d have brought the kiddie up as mine, never told it different. No point, is there? It would be ours. I’m a bit old to be starting over, but since you ask, if you were a lass James, that is what we would do – if you’d have me, of course...”

James looked strangely relieved. So it was a test then?

“So, would you have me then?”

“What?”

“As a husband, you know; if that weird situation was real?”

James grinned widely. “Oh yes!” he said happily. He then looked at the river forlornly.

“Bit dangerous that, feeding ducks lamb. Think they might turn carnivore. Vicious.”

“It was a vegetarian one. I didn’t think the meat ones smelt too good in the heat. I’m never sure about that shop’s display fridges.”

“Perhaps they’ll be after potatoes now! Go on, you can eat mine if you’re still hungry.”

“Thanks.”

Robbie took a deep breath. Perhaps this was the time to tell him about Lyn’s condition. What could he say? Speaking of babies...

While Robbie was struggling with how to phrase it, James mumbled, “It’s the Seroxat. It seems to be making me hungry this time. I went to see Dr. O’Brien every other day you were away. It was her idea, since she couldn’t make me go to a counsellor. We... talked. Because it was only ten minutes not fifty it was okay, you know?”

“Good. That’s good. My niece is a sort of therapist, so I talked to her, well one of her employees actually. We talked about me being more patient and less of a complete dick. Didn’t work, did it?”

James snorted in humour. “We talked about me being clearer. I don’t need to give you any details I don’t feel comfortable with, but I need to say no as soon as I start to flash or what we’re doing triggers bad memories. I know I can trust you to stop when I say no. You make me feel safe Robbie, you do. I know I made you feel dreadful before you went away and...”

“No love. It was me too. I need to not drink so much, I guess. I’m old, and I do come from a very different way of seeing things. I think I’ve grown and changed over the years, but you can’t undo it all, can you? Morse said once I talked as if I owned my wife and kids. I got upset, of course I didn’t see it like that, but he got me thinking. But then, he put women on pedestals – if you want to know all about his old-fashioned attitude to women and ‘suitable careers’ you best ask Laura.” Robbie laughed at the memories. “She certainly put him in his sexist place, I can tell you.”

“I can imagine.” James smiled.

“I was torn, too, pet. That week before I went away.”

“Torn?”

“Worried about our Lyn.”

“You said. I got jealous. I shouldn’t. It was wrong. I’m not very good at understanding normal family love Robbie, I didn’t get a good example, you are right... please don’t ask!

“I won’t. Thing is James...”

“What?"

“It’s our Lyn. She’s pregnant.”

“By this new boyfriend? You said you liked the old one. Did you meet him, the father...”

“He dumped her as soon as she was pregnant.”

“The complete shit!”

“Yup.”

“How far gone... When is the baby due... Jesus! You’re going to be a Grandpa! My boyfriend is a Grandpa!”

“Yeah, yeah, dump me now.”

“Never! Actually, it’s kind of sexy.”

“But you’re a strange one at times James. And to answer you, love, in a few weeks. She’s been too ashamed to tell me, plus she thought I was always working coz you were always with me.”

“Ah.”

“Told her different now. Showed her pictures of you. Told her I loved you and loved her Mam. Told her I was bi.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It was fine. Not sure how the same thing will go with Mark, if I ever get the chance. I’m going up when the baby is born, and you are coming with me, okay?”

James nodded. “Okay. I don’t know what use I’ll be but..."

“You, bonny lad, can cook! Can’t have my best girl coming out of hospital to nothing but egg and chips and takeaways, can I now? She’ll be feeding the wee one, so they need proper nutrition. I’ve told her you’re a fantastic cook.”

“I can follow a recipe.”

“Maybe so lad, but I’ve not seen you look at a book or your Blackberry anytime you’ve cooked for me.”

“Thank you.” James was now eating a banana that he’d pulled out of the same blue bag.

“You really are ravenous, aren’t you pet? Are they working, the drugs? You seem calmer.”

“I think maybe they’ve just started. I’ve... I’ve...” James looked away and muttered, “I’ve had lots of panic attacks and not been sleeping since you went. And when I sleep I get dreams. I’ve been remembering more, about then...”

“James love. And I wasn’t there.”

“I knew you were coming back. It sounds like you went to see Lyn just in time, else you’d have been actually meeting your grandchild.”

Robbie started to laugh.

“What? What’s so funny?"

“I might be going to be a Grandpa, but you’re gonna be Step-Grandad!”

“Oh, shut up!” James scooped some water from the river and splashed Robbie, who laughed and retaliated.

After a while they calmed down, drank the bottled water James had brought, and Robbie ate the other banana, and then said he wanted another go at the punt. After all, they had to get it back in another half an hour unless the wanted to pay excess on the hire.


	14. The birth

Robbie followed the midwife, feeling sick with worry – for Lyn, but a little for himself. He had been there at Lyn’s birth, and Mark’s, true, but this was a little different. He was even worried about seeing Lyn in a state of undress; that was something he’d not done since she was a wee girl. And her being in pain, he had nursed her when she was sick, but again, not since she was a child. How would it feel?

Lyn was on her side, her legs open, but a white blanket had covered her from the waist down. Another midwife, this one in loose blue scrubs rather than the smarter blue and white uniform, was examining her. Robbie went straight to the other end of the bed. Lyn was propping herself up on her elbow, holding a mask that was presumably for gas and air, begging to be allowed to take a whiff, but was being told to wait. She didn’t seem aware that Robbie had arrived.

“Lyn?” he said gently, stroking her hair out of her face. It was loose, her roots nearly three inches long, and damp with sweat. “I’m here pet. It’s your old Dad.”

“Daddy!” Lyn turned to look at him and he grabbed her hand as she held it out.

“I’m here love. I’m here.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know love.”

“Please can I...?” Lyn turned to the midwife who had fetched Robbie.

“Lyn, yes, you can take another whiff now, but no pushing. You’ve another centimetre to go,” the second midwife, the one who was examining Lyn, answered.

“But baby is so small,” said the first midwife, who, Robbie found out later, was Lyn’s community midwife.

“She still should wait,” argued the hospital midwife, in scrubs. Robbie later found out she was called Cathy. The community midwife was named Jenny. Both knew Lyn professionally as when she’d first moved up to Manchester with Tim for a few months Lyn had worked on paediatric ICU before transferring to A&E. She’d moved back to the general paediatric ward when she’d found she was pregnant. She had gone on working past the eighth month, by being vague about her due date. She needed all the money she could save. It was to become an ongoing battle with her father, who with money from Morse and Val’s life assurance, plus the sale of the family home, had a huge amount he could use to look after them comfortably. But Lyn had always been independent and stubborn. Like Val, although Val had always said she’d got it from him.

While the midwives had a discussion, Lyn moaned and gritted her teeth and squeezed his hand, only to let go to take more whiffs of gas and air.

After what seemed an eternity of just comforting a tired, fractious, in pain Lyn, she was told to push and then it grew worse. She screamed through each push, but after a while she was being told to try, to really push, to give it her all, and Lyn was crying and yelling that she was, and why didn’t they just fuck off. The following hours were a lesson to Robbie in how foul a mouth his lovely daughter could have. There was probably a reason why fathers shouldn’t be birth partners to their daughters. It had been bad enough being there with Val, and she had cursed him and told him, each time, no bloody more.

Lyn had no one to curse, so she swore at the midwives, who stayed calm and encouraging.

At one point he tried to give her a sip of water, but Cathy told him he had better not, not the state Lyn was in. That was just after they had decided to try forceps and bleeped an obstetrician.

Robbie was no fool; he knew what nil by mouth could mean. They were keeping their options open.

Time evaporated. He stood by Lyn, holding her hand, stroking her hair, making soothing sounds and reassuring with gentle platitudes, occasionally trying to get her to listen to the midwives. He didn’t really think of anything else. Time seemed to be passing so slowly yet racing at the same time.

Lyn pushed. She moaned. She cried. Cathy demanded of Jenny was she sure baby was so small.

Eventually, after the obstetrician, Dr. Liz Bryson, arrived in her green scrubs, Robbie thought to tell them what Lyn had told him on the phone. He had assumed to she had, but maybe not.

Once they knew she’d been having contractions fifteen minutes apart for three days they realised why she was simply so tired. She had nothing left to give.

They tried forceps. Robbie concentrated on looking only at his daughter’s face. She clung onto his hands and screamed. Robbie bit his tongue in an effort not to swear at these bloody women who were torturing his daughter.

They gave her an epidural and tried again.

Lyn by now seemed very far away, not really taking on board what anyone was saying to her. Jenny took her temperature. It was a thirty-nine point six and climbing.

That was when the doctor took the call for a caesarean. After that, everything was a flurry of movement, calling for a porter and arranging for a theatre to be prepped.

Robbie let them to their job. Lyn seemed far away now, not aware of anything. As he followed the staff and Lyn on the bed out of the delivery suite he thought he caught sight of James, coming out of a bathroom. James shrunk back into the shadows. He’d forgotten James. He’d just left him to it.

Lyn seemed to be falling unconscious, which was a bad thing, according to Liz. “Stay awake for me pet,” he said to her urgently, as he rushed to be at her side.

*

Robbie did as he was told. He took off suit jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves, scrubbed up and put on the green gown, hat and mask, and then returned to be by Lyn’s head. She was now on the operating table, and moaning, not really with it. This time he really, really concentrated on looking at her face and not what else was going on, but...

When he heard the tiny screams of a newborn baby, he had to look. Lyn was covered in green operating sheets and was already being put back together, but he had only eyes for the tiny baby in Jenny’s arms. She was wiping the wee scrap in a towel before she wrapped it in a blanket.

Lyn was unconscious, in a faint, or even just asleep, through exhaustion, or shock, he didn’t know. He approached Jenny, holding out his arms.

“It’s a girl,” Jenny said.

Robbie sat down in a corner and held his granddaughter, trusting the medical staff to sort out his daughter. They reassured him she was fine, apart from being dehydrated and exhausted. He was crying, something he hardly ever did. It wasn’t the fact his eyes were burning with tears; he actually had big, fat ones rolling down his cheeks.

They baby was awake, no longer crying, but looking up at him with big blue eyes in her tiny face, looking at him appraisingly, as if to say, ‘This is what the world looks like outside.”

“Hey you,” he said once he could control his voice without cracking. “I’m your Grandpa. Mammy’s having a little sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not sure if this chapter belongs here, where it is mostly about Robbie's feelings for James, but it is all from his pov and there was no room for this in Poisoned Minds.


	15. The beard

The beard

Lewis unlocked the door of his flat with a sigh. Finally it was over. Well, not over, not in the least, there was a lot to do, both at the station, the Tower, and the house of the perpetrator – of the Master! - on Canal Reach, along with his rooms at Merton and his office at the Natural Sciences. He hoped Kate would wait and work with them, he really did.

He threw his bag onto the sofa. The house smelt dusty and slightly frowsty, of emptiness. He had expected, maybe, it to smell of cat food, but no, Monty’s bowl was licked clean and obviously Hooper had been washing up, as the other bowl was on the drainer. He’d kept on top of taking the tins out to the rubbish. He hoped he remembered to recycle them, but he probably did. He wondered what the bin men had thought, over two months of empty landfill and a few cat food tins every fortnight.

He was tired. So tired. He had made his way back across the fields and scrubland in the pitch dark by the light of his phone, the night sun switched off and the helicopter gone as soon as the Master’s TARDIS had dematerialised. He had never seen one disappear before. He knew the noise from the inside of the Counsellor’s TARDIS.

He wondered if he should let her know he had seen the Master.

He had no idea how she would react, she wasn’t fond of her other father, and he was basically one of the good guys. So Robbie had heard. He’d never met him.

Ah, he was distracting himself from the kick in the guts. They had ended up back in the conference room at Kidlington, Kate desperate to get away to the Tower where poor Mitch had been taken, to see if they could de-programme him and get any answers. They also wanted to get Kettering, but Hooper, strangely confident and respected by Innocent, had put his foot down and insisted he be the one to inform the boy of the outcome in the morning.

Kate had assured him that the boy was at no risk, in fact, they may be offering him a job.

“Then you can do so at a decent hour, after I’ve prepared him,” Hooper said, standing his ground. Looked like Kate had a new Wolf and Hooper might make sergeant before he retired both. A lot had gone on in his absence, that was for sure.

He was distracting himself again.

James had sat; curled up, in the corner of the room, back fromm the table, slightly rocking, looking tired and worn out and more than a bit confused. Of course no one else could read all that on his seemingly impassive face. But to Robbie, every tick and slight down turn of the mouth and flicker of the eye had become an open book to him years before they got together.

If they were still together? Robbie was terrified they weren’t.

“See you tomorrow lad,” Robbie had called.

“You are both on 48 hours leave immediately after your debriefs with SEROCU,” Innocent had reminded them both firmly, as they walked back to their cars, following the trip to Innocent’s office to retrieve their house and car keys, their phones (dead), wallets, bank and other cards, passports and of course, warrant cards. Their own identities, in other words, their very own lives back.

“Aye, but I thought we could meet up for a pint maybe?” he began, neutrally, as colleagues, in front of their boss.

“I just need some time to myself,” James said, face neutral, voice empty. “Sir,” he added, flatly.

Robbie went to fill the kettle and remembered that it was in the blue transit van along with everything else he’d taken with him. He was desperate for a cuppa. Maybe he could nip to the all night Tescos at Cowley and get one?

He rubbed his hand over his face, over his scratchy beard. Not like this. He wasn’t going to be seen again like this. When he went out, he’d be himself.

He found one last beer in the fridge. It would have to do. He took it through to the living room and sat down and flipped on the TV. Everything seemed so sterile, so empty, so... so privileged compared to how he’d been living, compared to how those he’d lived among lived, compared to what they owned.

He lay there, staring blankly at the BBC News Channel, there was little on but porn and gambling and shopping so early in the morning. He’d not really followed what was going on in the rest of the world while he had been undercover. The house rarely had the news on the radio or the TV and he hadn’t bought a TV. The new Prime Minister was being assessed, and found wanting, by a group of people from charities, including those who dealt with the homeless, the disabled, and children. Food banks were a new thing, apparently. Not the kind of support that the Door put in, long term support for addicts and their families, or those that supported the mentally ill or learning disabled. No, but ordinary working people with families, and jobs. Well, he wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t voted Tory, and never would. He’d seen first hand the tightening of disability support with poor little Angie.

Poor girl. James had made a real connection with that girl, and it was her contacts that led him to Mitch’s gang and finally to the Master.

He heard the cat flap. Monty presented himself, sniffed his leg, sneezed, and walked away with his tail in the air in utter disgust. He heard the cat flap snap shut, almost as if Monty had slammed it, making it plain he was not happy at being left for so long and returning with the wrong smells.

James had really struggled in the early days, and then had terrifyingly grown into his legend. It was almost as if that James, the one who smoked too much pot and drank too much was the real James inside, the one who made friends with women and was honest about being abused as a child and was at least open and accepting of his homosexuality.

Sadly the only part that was his James was the drinking too much part.

He badly wanted to speak to him, but he wasn’t sure. He sat up, meaning to reach for his phone, but instead he scratched his face, running fingers through the beard.

“Ah, enough!”

It was over. They had stopped the deaths, if nothing else. Time to be back to normal. He got up and went into the bathroom in search of a new razor. Time for the beard to go for sure.

He stared at himself in the mirror and began.

Better, tomorrow, first thing, he would go to the barbers and get his hair cut properly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small note to remind you that this chapter is set in later September/early October 2010


	16. Lyn and Emma

On little sleep, Lewis left the house and went to his usual barbers, there as they opened up. After that he went to Sainsbury’s in Kidlington, avoiding both Cowley Road and Cowley Tescos, were he usually shopped, apart from popping to his local Co-op for bits and bobs, and stocked up. He made sure he bought a new kettle. He picked up a bacon butty and a takeaway tea on the way back from a truckers stand on the A40 ring road. He toyed with his phone then, wondering whether to ring James. James lived only a quarter a mile from the undercover house. He wondered how he was fairing.

No, let the lad sleep. They had been so late – or rather early – back. He’d see him that afternoon when they we to be debriefed by SEROCU and UNIT officially.

As he scrolled through the contacts, though, he passed Lyn as he just continued past James’ private number. He wanted to ring her so badly, but he didn’t know how.

He went home, showered to get rid of the hairs down the back of his neck, made a proper pot of tea and sat at the table, and picking up the house phone, dialled his daughter’s number. His granddaughter would be nine weeks old. How much she would have changed.

“Dad!” Lyn squealed. “Is it over? Did you get the pictures?”

“Lyn lass, it’s so good to hear you. How are you? How is the baby?”

“Emma, listen, it’s Grandpa. How are you Dad? I’m fine, tired, but fine, people from work are helping out, and Tim comes by every day. I swear Emma thinks he’s her daddy. Don’t you my little one? Are you done? Are you safe?”

“I’m done. We didn’t get him, the mass murderer, but we stopped the deaths, we stopped several drug factories and gangs to boot, so not bad for your old man, eh? Listen, I’ve got a meeting at two and then I’ve got the next day off. Can I drive up?”

“Yes! Oh yes! And ask after the pictures. I sent them to someone called Sandra at your station. She said she was making you an album, I’ve been sending her one every day. I’d just sent todays. No one told me...”

Robbie felt like his heart might burst with pride and guilt and love. “Sandra’s my boss’s PA. Civilian. Lovely girl though. I’ve thought of you every day, my lass. I’ll be there as soon as I can, love.”

“Will James be with you?”

“James?”

“Yes Dad, you know, the man who built the cot and cooked all those meals for me. Your boyfriend and sergeant.” Lyn laughed.

“It’ll just be me love,” Robbie replied carefully

“He’s okay though, isn’t it? Nothing happened did it?”

Cannabis. A-bombs. Heroin. Cut heroin. Nearly dying. Meeting family. Identity crises deeper than the poor boys’ usual existential flu...

“He’s fine love, he just needs a bit of space back in his own place after the undercover business. I’ll see you this evening, love. Kiss Emma for me.”

I hope he’s alright, I hope it’s just a bit of space, Robbie hoped, really having no idea. He tried to ring, but both James’ phones were switched off.


	17. Lewis and Hathaway

Lewis made himself a fried egg sandwich for lunch and then made himself presentable in his favourite, worn out, blue suit and a red tie. He looked at himself in the mirror by the door and grinned,

“Well hello Inspector Lewis,” he said to himself. He had never been so glad to go to a meeting at the station in his life. He had hated every minute undercover.

He wasn’t sure about James, about whether James had been undercover or come out of cover, at least, the closet. He had heard the gossip from some of the out uniform officers – the sarge was ‘so far in the closet he was in bloody Narnia’, ‘no wonder he was so frosty, he had Narnian icicles up his bum’, ‘there goes the ice queen’, to which the response was, ‘no, the ice maiden!’ Mostly Lewis turned the other way, but occasionally emerged from the corridor into the men’s locker room to scowl threateningly and receive blushes and averted eyes but not acknowledgement. Surely James heard such things? Just as much as the normal, ‘is he, isn’t he’, gossip from the vast majority of straight cops at the nick. Gossip which had strangely fallen silent since January and the Black and Mortmaigne cases and been replaced by surreptitious pitying glances. May had stunned and shocked the nick, answering the ‘is he’ brigade and horrifying the gay cops more than anyone, who seemed barely able to look at him. The men that was. Women officers, regardless of sexuality, appeared to have formed a protective ring about him, subtly. He wondered if James even noticed? His radar would pick up rejection and unkindness, it seemed all he expected, but would he notice compassion and kindness?

Why had he not so much as answered his voicemails with a single text? He was worried that James would fail to show.

The drive was relatively free of traffic, and coming through the end of St Aldates and past Christchurch into the station car park he was surprised to see few people milling about. Time had moved on, and the language schools and college TEFL courses emptied of summer students but only Freshers were up, fresh faced and innocent of anything, yet to learn to drink their own body weight in larger and steal traffic cones and policemen’s helmets and other jolly wheezes they got away with as Innocent would no doubt say they were ‘the right sort’.

God, he was cynical today. As a normal run of events Cowley’s CID dealt with the mundane serious crimes of the hoi polloi and plebs, leaving he and Hathaway to deal with the lofty crimes of the dreaming spires.

You learn, Lewis, you learn, Morse said in his head.

As Lewis parked his car he nodded to his imaginary boss. What do I do with James? he asked the ghost of his old boss in his head.

Love your awkward sod Robbie. Dear God Lewis, if you could put up with me, you can put up with the boy.

“Yep. Course.” Lewis said aloud as he climbed out of his Astra.

“Talking to yourself Sir? First sign of madness,” Lewis heard in the dulcet, public school, tones of his sergeant, and hopefully far more. He looked up and saw James locking his car two bays away. He was in a pale grey suit with a pink tie and shirt, pointed, expensive looking shoes, new looking shoes, in fact.

Shoes and musicals.

Subtle, mostly unnoticed, skin and eye make-up back on his face. He looked too perfect suddenly, like a plastic boy Barbie Doll or a Disney prince cartoon, compared to often unshaven, natural skin, rash and scar and all, Isaacs.

“If I am sergeant, it’s you who made me mad,” Lewis quipped back. ‘Whom made me so!’ Morse querulously corrected in his head.

James’ lips quirked up in a small, triumphant grin. “Sorry,” he said quietly, looking down.

“What for?” For what Lewis, for what!

Fuck off Sir! You’re just me imagination! Lewis thought angrily to the Morse in his head, feeling shy suddenly in front of his sergeant, friend, and until undercover, boyfriend.

“Going into purdah,” James replied, still not looking at him.

It took Lewis a moment to understand what he meant. “Well, I can’t lie and say I wasn’t worried for you, but you seem alright. Pint afterwards at least?” he suggested, sensing that they were going back at least three steps now, and he had to be soft and gentle, like taming a wild animal. All over a bloody again!

James smiled, a rare proper one. “That would be nice Sir.”

“You don’t have to-” he began, annoyed by the sir, but James interrupted him with,

“I think I do Sir. To start with. I need to shake Isaacs right off me.”

Of course, it was Isaacs who had called him Robbie, not James. At least, not in James’ strange big brain. “Fine. Shall we?” Lewis asked, trying and failing, not to snap, as he walked towards the door. James followed him. Lewis keypad unlocked and opened the door and took a step back, holding it open for James.

James hesitated, so Lewis indicated he go in first with a sideways nod of his head. James nodded slightly, but didn’t smile, and went in. They made their way up the stairs to the conference room.

“I thought we’d be back at Kidlington,” James said eventually into the silence, as they climbed the second flight. “That was where Operation Poppy was moved to, after all.”

“Innocent’s way of taking back control for her department, I guess. Keeping it low key and in her station. This is just a Thames Valley debrief, after all.”

They walked in silence for a while, along the corridor, waving and smiling and generally acknowledging the ‘welcome backs’ from every officer they passed. Eventually they got to the conference room Innocent had chosen for the debrief.

“You talked to him, didn’t you?” James said at the door. “Keller? The alien?”

Lewis looked James in the eye, not knowing what to say.

“Yep,” he decided on eventually, and knocked on the door.

*

Lewis didn’t recognise the white male senior officer nor the young Asian woman in a smart skirt suit, but the way James reacted with a sudden half second pause and then a tight smile to them told him that they must be the assessing officers from SEROCU who he had spoken to on the phone and had been authorised with a rubber stamp, no doubt due to pressure from Kate. They had put their collective foot down regarding Hathaway, a DS with no experience of undercover, little experience of CID after his two years probation in uniform, with a history of near subornation and unethical behaviour and two almost disciplinaries for lying during an investigation, to say nothing of his recent experience as a rape victim. He would love to have been a fly on a wall for that assessing meeting all those months ago, he had no idea how James had sold himself to them as being able to cope. At the time, Lewis had been so grateful, he had wanted James with him so badly, not as his boyfriend, but as his clever-clogs, observant, detail obsessed sergeant. Or he had told himself so. Really, he suspected he wanted James near him to protect him. Selfish. He realised now James had not coped, was not coping, and he had to do his bloody hardest to hide that fact now. He’d got the boy in the shit, he had to dig him out somehow.

Innocent stood. “Sergeant Hathaway. Inspector Lewis. This is Superintendent Andy Baker SEROCU and Doctor Parveen Prakresh. You’ll remember them James, from your assessment in Horsham. I think you spoke to Andy, didn’t you Robbie?”

Robbie nodded, as did James. Dr Prakresh smiled. He wondered if the first names were an indication that Innocent intended to play this informally or she was just putting them at their ease before the strike.

“The Superintendent is the officer in charge of placements and Dr. Prakresh is the senior assessing psychologist...”

Senior, thought Lewis. She looks all of twelve!

“...They thought it best if they have a brief chat with both of you informally, they'll interview you separately before we come back all together. Sit down gentlemen...” Innocent went on.

Robbie tried to catch James’ eye, but he was looking at a spot just above the officers and doctor’s heads on the wall in front of them. He looked like he was facing a firing squad. Robbie had had little worries up until he had seen James, but now he felt sick with nerves. James’ drug use had to be explained, and as senior officer, he had to own it, despite his having no knowledge until after the event, and not approving in the least. Still, UNIT’s scientists had been quite happy, at least with the cut heroin. All the heavy drinking and pot smoking, however, how much would they know about and discuss? How much would James admit to? If they were being interviewed separately...

He was a fool. This was James! He would admit to nothing. Best he minimize it all himself...

**Author's Note:**

> The new title comes from a song by Jethro Tull. I've been recently going thorugh my father's old prog rock vinyl and this one's lyrics stuck in my head as feeling something like all the boys are going through in the AU that starts with Cold Summer that started over four years ago as a desperate attempt to get my then very hyperactive Lewis obsessed autistic child still. And of course, Robbie Lewis like my father, was into this kind of prog. rock.
> 
> Kind comments and polite constructive crit most welcome.


End file.
